{"id":24515,"date":"2024-03-19T07:38:58","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T11:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/president-ruto-signs-controversial-law-paving-way-for-monthly-deductions\/19\/03\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-03-19T07:38:58","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T11:38:58","slug":"president-ruto-signs-controversial-law-paving-way-for-monthly-deductions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/president-ruto-signs-controversial-law-paving-way-for-monthly-deductions\/19\/03\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"President Ruto signs controversial law paving way for monthly deductions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Kenya&#8217;s President William Ruto has signed into law a controversial bill, paving the way for the government to continue collecting a housing levy of 1.5% of a worker&#8217;s monthly pay.<\/p>\n<p>The levy is intended to pay for the construction of affordable housing for poorer Kenyans.<\/p>\n<p>But it sparked an outcry from the opposition and a large section of the population who feel burdened by a raft of new taxes.<\/p>\n<p>The law had been held up in the courts.<\/p>\n<p>A judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-68104248?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:had stopped the deductions citing lack of a legal framework;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">had stopped the deductions citing lack of a legal framework<\/a>. However, MPs amended and approved the bill last week despite objections from opposition legislators.<\/p>\n<p>The levy, which had been mentioned in Mr Ruto&#8217;s manifesto for the 2022 election, was part of a finance law adopted last June that also doubled the sales tax on fuel. A new higher health insurance levy is also due to come into effect soon.<\/p>\n<p>The government has argued that it needs to increase its revenue from taxation in order to reduce the budget deficit and pay for public services.<\/p>\n<p>The authorities had begun deducting the 1.5% housing levy from peoples&#8217; pay from last July. But, amid public anger, one activist took the government to court arguing successfully that it unfairly singled out Kenyans in the formal sector who get a regular monthly salary.<\/p>\n<p>In order to address the issues raised by the court, the new law now extends the levy to other workers and now requires non-salaried Kenyans in the informal sector to pay the levy.<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear how the government will collect the money from those in the informal sector.<\/p>\n<p>The new law also establishes the Affordable Housing Fund, which is intended to manage the money the government will get from the levy.<\/p>\n<p>The authorities say the deduction will not be backdated to include the money that would have been paid had the scheme not been suspended.<\/p>\n<p>President Ruto is aiming to construct 200,000 affordable housing units every year and hopes to create more than 600,000 jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The opposition has threatened to take this new law to court, alleging the government ignored concerns of Kenyans over the increasing tax burden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You may also be interested in:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/kenya-housing-levy-president-ruto-111412992.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya&rsquo;s President William Ruto has signed into law a controversial bill, paving the way for the government to continue collecting a housing<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/president-ruto-signs-controversial-law-paving-way-for-monthly-deductions\/19\/03\/2024\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}