• Ruto’s affordable housing programme came a cropper, at least legally, after the courts twice declared the 1.5 per cent housing levy meant to finance it illegal.
• The new bill contains amended clauses which the courts said were unconstitutional.
Image: KIMANI ICHUNG'WAH/X
Majority leader in the National Assembly Kimani Ichung’wah has assured President William Ruto that the Kenya Kwanza side will use its numerical advantage in the House to pass the new bill on affordable housing.
Ruto’s affordable housing programme came a cropper, at least legally, after the courts twice declared the 1.5 per cent housing levy meant to finance it illegal.
But speaking at the start of a Cabinet retreat in Naivasha on Monday, Ichung’wah assured the President that the Kenya Kwanza side will pull all stops to ensure the a new bill currently before the House passes without hitches.
“Your Excellency I’m happy to report we began debate last week on Thursday, we were not able to conclude and hopefully we should be able to conclude that tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon,” he said.
The new bill contains amended clauses which the courts said were unconstitutional.
In a decision on November 28 last year, three judges of the High Court ruled that the introduction of the housing levy through amendment of the Employment Act by Section 84 of the Finance Act, 2023 lacks a comprehensive legal framework in violation of Articles 10, 201, 206 and 210 of the Constitution.
Justices David Majanja, Christine Meoli and Lawrence Mugambi also found the imposition of the housing levy unfair, discriminatory and irrational saying informal income earners are excluded in supporting the national housing policy.
The judges also said the law ought to have been subjected to public participation prior to its implementation.
The government appealed the decision and sought orders to stay the verdict and continue collecting the 1.5 per cent levy but the appellate court threw out the application on January 26, 2024.
A three-judge bench held that it wouldn’t be in public interest to grant the order sought by the government to allow a statute that has been found to be constitutionally illegal to continue being in the law books pending the hearing of an appeal.
“This is because should the Court hearing the appeal affirm the constitutional invalidity of the impugned laws, then all actions that will have been undertaken under the impugned sections of the law during the intervening period will be legally frail," Justices Lydia Achode, John Mativo and Mwaniki Gachoka said.
Undettered, President Ruto insisted that the affordable housing plan would continue and asked the court to give the government time to conclude creation of a new law to actualise the housing levy.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I want to tell them that we were in the reprocess of creating a law to guide the process and they should have given us time,” Ruto, who spoke in Meru on Friday, January 26, said.
On Monday, Ichung’wah assured the President that the plan to enact a new law was on course and the 1.5 per cent housing levy will be back before the March payrolls are finalized.
“We should be able to conclude that business tomorrow (Tuesday), hopefully on Wednesday afternoon we get into third reading…and be able to process the bill forward to the Senate so that they are able to advertise it by Friday, do the public participate and be able to get a new Affordable Housing Bill before the next payroll,” he said.
“Usually, many corporations both private and public process their payrolls after the 15th of the month, so we hope by 15th of March, your Excellency, you will have assented to the new Affordable Housing Bill.”
The Majority leader rallied Kenya Kwanza MPs attending the Cabinet retreat not to fail in showing up in the House to pass what he termed as critical government business.
He said debate was last Thursday afternoon cut short because the Majority side failed to show up in their numbers.
“Every time the Whip or anyone of us is around trying to mobilize people to get back to the House they tell you ‘Niko pekee yangu tu, nakuja’ (I’m just alone, I’m coming) and we all forget that it is you as an individual who adds to the collective numbers,” he said.
“And when one person again stays away in the constituencies saying ‘it’s only myself’, another one is reasoning the same way and eventually we find ourselves that we don’t have the numbers. It’s unfortunate and I have to report here your Excellency, on Thursday afternoon the other side were more than us in the House.”
For a bill to pass on the floor of the House, it requires two-thirds majority during voting.