A section of activists has filed a petition challenging President William Ruto’s promise to allocate 20 per cent of the units in the Affordable Housing program to teachers and police officers.
In the petition filed at the High Court on Thursday, September 25, the activists faulted Ruto’s promise, citing a lack of public participation and illegality in the President’s assurance.
On Saturday, September 13, Ruto made the promise while addressing over 10,000 teachers during a Walimu na Rais forum at State House, Nairobi, noting that the pledge would be captured in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The meeting brought together teachers from the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), the Kenya Primary School Heads Association (KEPSHA), and other unions to forward their grievances in the education sector.
“Today, we are going to sign, here, an MoU, so that teachers can get 20 per cent of all the housing we are constructing in Kenya,” Ruto announced.
Even so, the President’s promise would have to be anchored in law or subsidiary legislation to be enforceable.
Currently, the Affordable Housing Program (AHP) is under the Housing Act (Cap 117) and related regulations including the Affordable Housing Levy framework.
To reserve 20 per cent of houses for teachers, the State Department for Housing and Urban Development would need to draft a regulation or amend existing ones, specifying a quota for teachers. Alternatively, Parliament could pass a specific amendment or resolution to anchor this allocation in law.
For the MoU, it would likely be signed between the Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Housing/Treasury, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), as the employer and representative of teachers, and possibly KNUT and KUPPET as stakeholders.
Crucially, the MoU can not be treated as law, but it can outline criteria, obligations, and processes such as eligibility, financing, and priority lists. However, for it to hold legally, the MoU needs to be backed by statutory authority, meaning it must be referenced in housing allocation regulations under the Housing Act.
As for its implementation, a quota system would see each housing project under the AHP reserve 20 per cent of units strictly for teachers. However, the TSC would need to provide details of eligible teachers by income level, location, and employment status.
For police officers, Ruto had noted that the allocation would provide long-term stability for officers who often face housing challenges, particularly in high-cost urban areas where government housing has historically been inadequate.
The Head of State noted that the government would also be introducing flexible and subsidised financing options to ease homeownership for officers under the programme.
Under the new arrangement, officers would access single-digit interest rate loans—three per cent for those purchasing social housing, six per cent for affordable housing, and nine per cent for those buying high-market units.
