Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have pronounced themselves on the Housing Levy deductions.
They both resoundingly declared the law as currently formulated illegal and unconstitutional.
So unless the Supreme Court, where the Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetang'ula has moved, overturns the ruling, any deductions remain illegal.
The Federation of Kenya Employers in an advisory issued after the Court of Appeal ruling advised employers not to make the deductions.
However many employers out of fear of reprisal have gone ahead and made the deductions.
Already several groups, among them MPs and teachers, are demanding refunds for amounts deducted in January.
The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers has warned the Teachers Service Commission that it will take all measures to enforce the refund.
The Kenya Revenue Authority is usually very fast in effecting any due deductions in areas whenever the courts rule in the government's favour.
The same should apply when the courts rule against the government.
The state should use the ongoing public hearings – which it should have conducted in the first place – to genuinely gauge the public’s position on the Housing Levy.
Let the hearings not be mere cosmetic and public relations forums to sanitise the levy and ram it down the throats of Kenyans.
Those behind the levy's push should be reminded that vox populi vox Dei.
Quote of the Day: “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
Mark Twain
Samuel Clemens first used the pen name Mark Twain in a Virginia City newspaper, the 'Territorial Enterprise', on February 3, 1863
