The proposed three per cent housing scheme levy on salaried workers is a kin to seeking to starve people to death, Kitui county Kuppet executive secretary Kioko Mutia has said.
“What the government is doing is removing food from our children’s mouths. It is like they want to starve our children the Shakahola way,” Mutia said on Wednesday.
As he added his voice to intensified opposition against the housing scheme, Mutia who represents the Kitui Kuppet fraternity, said it would be absolutely wrong for the government to implement the levy he described as exploitative.
“That would be absolutely wrong. We condemn it in the strongest terms possible,” Mutia said when he addressed the media in Kitui town.
He added that teachers’ pays lips were overcommitted and were in bad shape to accommodate any additional deduction.
“Over 80 per cent of our members have loans with saccos and banks that we are servicing. They have committed their salaries in mortgages to build homes. We are now struggling to pay.
“We are struggling to service our loans from banks and saccos and our pay slips are badly mutilated,” the unionist said.
He further rued that teachers lost their medical allowances to an amorphous health scheme which was hardly of helpful to them.
Mutia said the contribution to NHIF was being adjusted to 2.7 per cent of an individual’s income, thus making things more unbearable.
Mutia added that the fact teachers also lost 7.5 per cent of their incomes to the superannuation pension scheme literally left their pays slips with nothing.
At the same time Mutia shared a petition he has sent to the clerk of the National Assembly demanding that the Finance Bill, 2023 should not be forwarded for debate in National Assembly until the housing scheme levy is expunged.
In the letter dated May 10, Mutia avers that the housing scheme levy will not only be an unnecessary burden but also a duplication as another housing scheme is factored in the superannuation pension scheme.
He said teachers did not need to contribute to the housing levy scheme as they had access to 40 per cent of their money in the superannuation pension fund to build homes.
He said teachers were generally hard up as they have not received any salary increments since 2017.