With 67 days to the August 9 General Election, Members of Parliament are also working round the clock to finalise on legislations and proposals by the National Treasury that are geared towards financing the Financial Year 2022/2023 budget.
The proposals contained in the Finance Bill 2022 will see some products attract higher taxes, eventually pushing their prices up.
Some of the products targetted in the new taxation include Sim Cards, wines and spirits.
In a parliamentary session that extended to late hours of the night on Thursday, June 2, Kikuyu Member of Parliament, Kimani Ichungwah, proposed an increase in the excise duty on spirits, beer, and wine by a margin of between 20.2 per cent and 25.6 per cent.
MPs are pushing to increase taxation on beer and a new duty on imported SIM cards as part of the changes they want included in the Finance Bill 2022.
Ichungwah also told the August House that the excise duty on imported sim cards should be increased by Ksh50.
The proposal by Ichungwah, if adopted, will see the tax on a litre of beer rise by 23.1 per cent to Ksh150 from the current Ksh121, which will increase the price of a bottle of beer by Ksh15.
The proposals are higher than the proposed duties by Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Ukur Yatani.
However, to shield the consumers from higher prices on basic commodities, MPs endorsed proposed amendment to Finance Bill 2022 to slash Value Added Tax (VAT) on Liquefied Petroleum Gas from present 16.0 per cent to 8.0 per cent.
If adopted, it will see the price of a 13kg cylinder of cooking gas fall by a margin of at least Ksh230.
The proposed reviews come a year after MPs reinstated the 16 per cent VAT on cooking gas. The move saw prices of LPG increase significantly nationwide.
The proposals by the MPs come amid Treasury's decision to raise the national debt ceiling by Ksh1 trillion, to hit the Ksh10 trillion mark.
CS Yatani raised the ceiling by exploiting provisions of the Public Finance Management (National Government) (Amendment) Regulations, 2022.
"Regulation 26 of the Public Finance Management (National Government) Regulations 2015, is amended in sub-regulation 1 by deleting paragraph (c) and substituting therefore with: pursuant to the provision of section 50(2) of the Act, the public debt shall not exceed Ksh10 trillion," a Special Gazette Notice dated Thursday, May 26 read in part.
