There was a light moment in Parliament after Suna East MP Junet Mohammed joked about his Kikuyu counterpart Kimani Ichung’wah’s net worth.
The two lawmakers are part of the National Assembly’s Committee on Appointments vetting the Cabinet Secretaries nominees. READ FULL STORY
Speaking moments before taking a break, members of the committee were discussing the issue of wealth declaration when Junet claimed that Ichung’wah is worth about Ksh 5 billion.
However, Speaker Moses Wetangula who chairs the committee dismissed the figure, accusing Junet of understating the Kikuyu MP.
“Mr Speaker I’m aware that Ichung’wah is worth over Ksh 5 billion as at now,” Junet said to which Wetangula responded, “why are you understating him?”
Ichung’wah laughed off the claims by Junet.
This comes at a time when Ichung’wah and other Kenya Kwanza MPs are under fire for voting to pass the 2024 Finance Bill.
The Kikuyu MP is among legislators who have defended the decision of at least 204 Members of Parliament to vote ‘Yes’ for the Bill.
Ichung’wah said the Bill is for the good of the country and it will help create jobs for the youth.
He affirmed that the Kenya Kwanza administration is focused on making responsible decisions and not popular ones like it has been with past administrations.
Ichung’wah insisted that all these decisions are deliberate and will encourage local manufacturing and employment creation for the youth.
“I want to say to our children in the Gen Z generation, whatever decisions we make we will make responsible decisions as leaders. Leaders in the past in our country have been afraid of making the right decisions and always made popular decisions for political expediency. We want to secure your future by making the right decisions
“When we say we will not tax locally manufactured and locally assembled products it’s deliberate. We want to levy taxes, import duty, exercise duty on fully finished goods being imported from other countries so that we can secure your future, so that we can encourage our local manufacturers to manufacture from Kenya to create jobs and generate an income for you so that even tomorrow you become taxpayers and participate in the nation building of our country,” he said.
Ichung’wah added that the Finance Bill 2024, is a step towards making the future of Gen Zs who have been protesting all week better.
He noted that while it is their constitutional right to demonstrate, they have been greatly misled.
He said the taxes that led to the demos were removed and that parliament will, starting Tuesday, make amendments to the Finance Bill.
“Those protesting will continue to do so because it is their Constitutional right but they are also being misled with propaganda. They have been told bread has tax, they don’t know the tax was removed, they have been told there is motor vehicle tax and they have cars but they don’t know it was removed
“On Tuesday, we will be in parliament to make amendments to the Finance Bill to remove tax on bread, motor vehicle tax and tax on sanitary pads that are locally manufactured and diapers,” he added.
