A Kenyan court ruled on Tuesday that a salary levy introduced by President William Ruto in June was illegal, dealing a major blow to the government’s aim of bolstering the state coffers.<\/p>\n
A law allowing a 1.5% levy on the salaries of all Kenyan taxpayers, including employers, was passed in June to finance a low-cost housing programme.<\/p>\n
Three judges of the Nairobi High Court ruled that the measure was not part of a complete legal framework and that the exclusion of informal workers was “discriminatory and irrational”.<\/p>\n
“An order has been made prohibiting the collection of (…) the fees known as the Affordable Housing Act”, said Justice David Majanja.<\/p>\n
The levy was part of a budget bill that introduced many new taxes for Kenyans, against a backdrop of already high inflation.<\/p>\n
Anger over rising prices, particularly for basic necessities such as food and fuel, led to a series of sometimes deadly protests against William Ruto’s government earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Kenya, the powerhouse of East Africa, is plagued by galloping inflation and a plummeting currency, which has caused the cost of repaying its debt to soar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Kenyan court ruled on Tuesday that a salary levy introduced by President William Ruto in June was illegal, dealing a major blow to the government’s aim of bolstering the state coffers. A law allowing a 1.5% levy on the salaries of all Kenyan taxpayers, including employers, was passed in June to finance a low-cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AFP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,33],"tags":[111,1777,490],"class_list":["post-10037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-politics","tag-kenya","tag-taxpayers","tag-william-ruto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}