Azimio leader Raila Odinga delivering his speech at Ufungamano House in Nairobi on April 13, 2023.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga has signalled a new year push to mobilise Kenyans to protest against government excesses, including high taxation, withheld free education cash and corruption.
In his New Year message on Saturday, Mr Odinga regretted that 2023 is ending on a sad note, “just like it started” as Kenyans continue to be ravaged by the high cost of living amidst loud silence from the government.
“We shall work with all people of goodwill to restore hope and faith in our nation. We are willing to build a coalition of citizens who are willing to plan, mobilise, and organise effectively to reclaim and take back our nation,” said the opposition leader.
Kenya Kwanza regime
“When that time comes, we expect all Kenyans to set aside their differences and engage in actions to restore dignity to livelihoods. The Kenya Kwanza regime has clearly become a curse upon the nation. Let us join hands and stop this regime from ruining our beloved land and our pride and dignity as citizens,” he added.
Mr Odinga told Kenyans to prepare themselves in the New Year to liberate themselves from what he termed as oppression and exploitation by the State.
“In this New Year, we shall organise to liberate ourselves from oppression and exploitation. We shall exercise our sovereign power of the people to stop death and suffering of the people and restore our dignity and well-being.”
The Azimio la Umoja coalition leader regretted that the whereabouts of millions of shillings meant for free primary and secondary education is unknown, leaving schools choking under huge debts, pupils and students suffering and head teachers left with no money for operations and to pay non-teaching staff.
“We have tasked our MPs to push and we also plan to go to court to force the Ministry of Education to release full capitation to schools, both primary and secondary so that schools can start the year smoothly. Why would a government deny a primary school child Sh1200 in a year? We also want the exchequer and HELB to release loans to university students,” Mr Odinga said.
Capitation money
“We will not allow the government to play with the future of the children. We will also be seeking an audience with the education ministry on the whereabouts of the half of the capitation money. We believe some of this money is going to fictitious schools that have been created for purposes of embezzlement,” he added.
Mr Odinga claimed that some officers at the Ministry of Education are not only creating fictitious schools but are also interfering with the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) data provided by teachers to inflate or decrease student numbers and create non-existent schools to which money is sent.
On the numerous taxes by the State that have led to the high cost of living, Mr Odinga said the coalition has devised a plan to form a broad-based anti-tax campaign that would allow Kenyans to keep much more of their hard-earned money.
“We are going to press for a taxation plan that provides for an across-the-board income tax rate reduction for all Kenyans who pay income taxes. We will task our lawmakers to reject any proposal to establish new taxes on anything. Through different avenues, we will also continue to fight the old taxes that came into force last July,” he said.
Mr Odinga sent a stern warning to the State that the coalition is not yet done with the fight on various taxes recently introduced such as the tax on salaries from 30 percent to 35 percent, a new 1.5 percent housing tax, a 2.75 percent hospital insurance fund levy, a three percent turnover (gross sales) tax on small businesses, and doubling of taxes on fuel to 16 percent, among others.
“We are going to fight these taxes on multiple fronts,” he warned without revealing details. He said the repressive taxes have led to a relatively low number of tourists this festive season.
The opposition leader regretted that the country during this festive session received a relatively low number of tourists due to the repressive taxes introduced by the government.
Corruption
Mr Odinga also traded his guns on corruption that has been rife in government saying the opposition will team up with the civil society to eject corrupt officers out of office through the legal means.
He singled out Kenya National Trading Corporation, the Ministries of Energy and Petroleum, the National Treasury, Health and Education as key areas where corruption has been rife in the recent past.
“We are reaching out to civil society organisations and our citizens to form a strong coalition to smoke out corruption and force the corrupt out of office through the justice system and other legal means,” Mr Odinga said.
The opposition leader regretted that as corruption is rearing its ugly head back, the government continues to live in denial.
“Kenya Kwanza is the normalisation of corruption. There is an implicit and explicit idea that corruption is okay in governance. People who had corruption cases have been appointed to key government positions before having their cases systematically dropped,” Mr Odinga said.
The former Prime Minister regretted that due to corruption, the private sector has been affected, some foreign companies are fleeing and local ones are downsizing their staff and production.
