National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah has admitted that Parliament quietly passed the Finance Bill, 2024, in December 2024, just months after the deadly anti-finance bill protests.
Speaking during a church service at PCEA Kikuyu on Sunday, June 22, Ichung'wah revealed that the government decided to take this step after realising that Kenyans were hell-bent on believing 'propaganda' being spread on social media about the bill.
"We tried to enlighten them, but they did not listen to us. Finally, we decided not to pass it until people cooled down," he stated.
"For your information, because not many people know this, on June 25, we decided not to sign it in. On December 4, 2024, only five months later, everything that was in the finance bill was passed quietly, without any deaths or throwing stones, until 97 per cent of it passed."
He further added that the 3 per cent rejected were as a result of the amendments made before Kenyans started a campaign of "Don't amend, reject."
According to the lawmaker, this decision was made because the government felt it was in the best interest of Kenyans. Insisting that Kenyans were mostly lied to, he explained that the controversial belief that the Bill sought to tax diapers and sanitary towels was misconstrued, as the tax was only meant for imported ones and not those made in Kenya.
This, he explained, could boost Kenyan companies and thus create more jobs for the young people. As a result of this, Ichung'wah claimed that the government had since collected about Ksh187 billion in tax as of May in the 2024/2025 fiscal year, leading the government to revive several stalled projects.
The Finance Bill 2024 had been projected to raise Ksh346 billion by June, losing at least Ksh160 billion in the period between June and December when it had not been implemented.
In December, the National Assembly passed the Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024 and the Business Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024, both from the National Treasury through the Office of the Majority Leader.
The two, according to Ichung’wah, offered a more tempered alternative to the controversial Finance Bill 2024, which was rejected after over 50 Kenyans died during protests.
Our review of the two shows that while the Finance Bill had proposed a 1.5 per cent Digital Service Tax alongside a 6 per cent Significant Economic Presence (SEP) tax targeting digital platforms, the revised legislation dropped the DST and introduced a single, more moderate SEP tax rate of around 3 per cent.
Contentious provisions such as the proposed 16 per cent VAT on essential goods, like bread, cooking oil and eggs, along with the motor vehicle tax and eco-levies on consumer products like diapers and phones, were abandoned entirely in the December amendments.
In contrast, the Tax Laws Amendment Bill focused on raising allowable pension deductions, exempting affordable housing contributions, and introducing a 15 per cent global minimum corporate tax for multinationals.
Other key changes included the reintroduction of withholding tax measures with clearer remittance structures and harsher penalties for non-compliance, including a 10 per cent penalty for late remittances.
The Business Laws Amendment Bill, though largely technical, updated the legal framework for Special Economic Zones and the Employment Act, complementing the tax reforms and signalling a more cautious, recalibrated fiscal policy.
