Kenya’s President William Ruto says he will withdraw a finance bill containing controversial tax hikes after deadly protests which saw parliament set ablaze on Tuesday.
No less than 20 people were said to have died and parliament was ransacked by protesters opposed to the legislation.
Ruto said he would start a dialogue with Kenyan youth, without going into details, and work on austerity measures starting with cuts to the budget of the presidency to make up the difference in the country’s finances.
But he warned that the withdrawal of the finance bill would mean a significant shortfall in funding for development programmes designed to help farmers and schoolteachers, among others, as the East African nation struggles to lower its foreign debt burden.
“I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 finance bill and it shall subsequently be withdrawn,” Ruto told a press briefing, adding: “The people have spoken.”
The move will be seen as a major victory for a week-old protest movement that grew from online condemnations of tax increases into mass rallies demanding a political overhaul, in the most serious crisis of Ruto’s two-year-old presidency.
Ruto’s administration had been taken by surprise by the intensity of opposition to its tax hikes, with protests breaking out across the country last week.
