Raila calls for another dialogue over Affordable housing

Azimio leader Raila Odinga is now calling for another national dialogue over the affordable housing project.

Speaking on Wednesday, Raila said the dialogue will help Kenyans better understand what the programme is all about.

He said from the dialogue, they will also come up with an effective way to roll out the affordable housing project.

The former Prime Minister noted that it was through such consultation that projects like the Standard Gauge Railway, Vision 2023, Konza Technopolis and Lapsset, among others, were born.

"Let us have a national dialogue on how this program is going to be rolled out so that people own it properly. People understand what you want to do," Raila said during the celebration of PNU's 15th anniversary. 

"When we were making the transformation with Kibaki, we convened a conference at Bomas of Kenya for one week. It was called the Kenya We Want and people dialogued and agreed on what needed to be done in our country. Then we also set up a think tank called the National Economic and Social Council (NESC). It had experts from Singapore, Korea, and Britain and experts from within the country."

Raila insisted that the Affordable Housing Project should also not be forced on everyone.

He said that once Kenyans get to understand the essence, people will voluntarily sign and agree to pay to have the houses without being forced.

The Opposition leader further noted that the failures the Kenya Kwanza regime is currently facing is because of poor advice.

He noted that when the Narc administration came into power, they inherited a broke government but they were still able to implement policies like free education within their first year in office.

"This regime is failing because of poor advice. I want to give them advice, when we came into power we found a bankrupt government, Kibaki himself was sick but he could give us advice on what to do from his sick bed. But we were there implementing what we had agreed on as our policies," Raila said.

Raila hit out at the administration saying that Azimio had a complete plan on how the government could set aside funds in the budget to fund the project.

"The issue of this Housing that these people are struggling with is not a new thing, it's in our manifesto as Azimio. They borrowed it but they don't know how to implement it. Us we knew how to implement it," he said.

The Azimio leader's remarks come a few days after the Court of Appeal declined to suspend orders barring the state from deducting house levies from Kenyans.

Justices Lydia Achode, John Mativo and Gatembu Kairu said that the public interest lies in awaiting the determination of the appeal.

"This is because if the stay sought is granted at the stage, should we affirm the challenged decision, then some far-reaching decisions that will have been undertaken under the challenged laws may not be reversible," they said.

"Public interest in our view tilts favour of in not granting the stay or the suspension sought."

The High Court had earlier declared the mandatory Housing Levy unconstitutional.