MPs move to save boda bodas from Rotich tax

A section of MPs has vowed to save millions of boda boda operators from a government proposal that will see them pay regular insurance cover for their passengers.

The lawmakers claim the revenue-raising measure announced during last week’s budget reading is not only insensitive to the industry but will impoverish further hardworking youths who have created jobs for themselves.

On Monday, a number of ODM MPs said they would rally their colleagues to shoot down the proposal. 

Saboti MP Caleb Amisi and his Mathare counterpart Antony Oluoch, while addressing a press conference at Parliament buildings, vowed to lobby MPs to strike off the measure when the House debates the Finance Bill.

The legislators claim taxing operators is not well thought and is an indication that Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich is not alive to the reality in the sector.

“An ambitious budget with the promise of making the lives of people of Kenya better and at the same time riddled with irony. While it promises to create jobs, for instance, it at the same proposes measures that would outrightly put people out of employment,” Amisi said.

“While the covers are good and worthwhile, we must hold an honest conversation with all the relevant stakeholders and see how best we can help our people to do better in the ventures they have taken up.”

Oluoch clarified that they are not opposed to the various tax-raising measures proposed by Rotich but are only against the one touching on the operators, whom he said are breadwinners to millions of Kenyans.

“We will be asking our Members of Parliament that when the Finance Bill comes and when they sit to consider that particular measure, we do not pass it the way it is. We must find a soft landing without disrupting the industry,” Oluoch added.

The Mathare MP said the government should consider staggering the implementation of the insurance cover regulation to January next year to allow operators ample time to comply.

Speaking to the Star, Homa Bay Woman Representative Gladys Wanga termed the proposal "punitive" calling for more stakeholder engagement.

“Boda boda operators are completely stretched, this is a business line for young people and I think they unable to manage this kind of insurance,” Wanga said.

Rotich on Thursday last week, when presenting the budget in Parliament, announced that all boda boda operators will be compelled to have insurance cover for passengers and pedestrians.

Edited by R.Wamochie