After protests, Kenya’s president backs down on controversial tax bill

Kenyan President William Ruto announced Wednesday that he would not sign a controversial finance bill that would introduce new taxes, a surprise move a day after Kenyans stormed Parliament and escalated massive street protests, which were met by a deadly police crackdown. More than 20 people were killed and hundreds injured in the clashes, rights groups said.

“Listening keenly to the people of Kenya, who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill 2024, I concede,” Ruto said in a Wednesday address to the nation. “Therefore, I will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill, and it shall subsequently be withdrawn.”

He said he agreed on that “collective position” along with other government members — an announcement met by applause from his audience.

Finance Bill 2024 was introduced for debate in Kenya’s Parliament last month. It calls for increases in taxable incomes, excise duties and value-added taxes. It also introduces new income tax categories to the nation’s finance laws, in a bid to raise revenue in part to combat the nation’s high debt.

On Tuesday, as lawmakers pushed the finance bill forward, the week-old protests flared. Demonstrators breached Parliament buildings in Nairobi’s city center.

Kenyan Defense Secretary Aden Duale on Tuesday deployed the military to support the national police in responding to the protests. As part of the response, police beat protesters and fired tear gas at them. Gunshots were also heard around Parliament.

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The United Nation s, opposition leaders and civil society groups urged restraint and condemned the violence.

The Police Reforms Working Group Kenya, a civil society organization focused on policing, said it recorded 23 deaths caused by police shootings nationwide. It also recorded more than 50 arrests, 22 abductions and 300 injuries, the group said.

In a statement Wednesday, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights condemned “unprecedented and shocking human rights violations” committed “in the context of exercising the guaranteed right to demonstrate, assemble and picket.” The watchdog commission recorded 21 fatalities during the demonstrations. Most of those who died were “shot with live bullets,” it added.

Opposition leader and former prime minister Raila Odinga, who helped lead the protests, said Tuesday that he was “deeply troubled by the violent and deadly crackdown on young, peaceful protesters.” He called for the government to “immediately stop the violence its agencies are meting out on citizens.”

Ruto’s address Wednesday was more conciliatory compared to the previous day, when he called the demonstrations “treasonous.”

As he announced a rejection of the finance bill, he also said he sent “condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones in this unfortunate manner.”