Ruto: Separate politics from levy on housing
President William Ruto yesterday sustained his campaign for the controversial housing levy by asking critics to keep politics out of the welfare plan.
The Head of State who spoke during the official opening of the second session of the United Nations Habitat Assembly in Gigiri, said that in order for slum dwellers to have upgraded living conditions, sacrifices must be made.
“There is nothing wrong with the housing programme. We just need to separate the politics. If our freedom fighters had asked themselves, how is it their business to go and fight for the freedom of the whole country, we would still be slaves. They made a sacrifice to liberate us; we need to make a sacrifice to liberate people from the slums,” he said.
Launched simultaneously
The President compared Kenya’s National Housing Corporation to Korea’s which he said was launched simultaneously.
“We started national housing corporate the same year Korea and Singapore started theirs,” he said.
“Korea was a slum just like Kibera, Singapore now has 85 per cent housing.”
While insisting that the plan will favour Kenyans, Ruto said there are close to six million people living in slums with no water, and no toilets.
“We are going to create a lot of employment with this new program. Architects, contractors, and constructors and that is how we will create a wider tax-paying bracket,” he said.
Economic plan
“Many people have asked me Mr President you are telling me about building a home for people of the slums, how is it my business I tell them those people are also Kenyans and they matter, they voted as well.”
He said that in his bottom-up economic plan, every Kenyan will be able to sustain themselves and rise.
“We need to liberate people living at the bottom of the pyramid.”
The President also announced that more than half of Kenya’s population will live in urban areas by 2050.
“We have integrated universal housing as a critical pillar of the national bottom-up economic transformation agenda,” he said.
Ruto said his administration has further mainstreamed sustainable urban practices of green building, green spaces, adoption of low-carbon energy use, including low-carbon transport solutions, as well as urban agriculture and effective waste management.
“As a government, we will take the lead, all civil servants who will pay three per cent to the Housing Fund we will pay another three per cent every month so that we can create a fund that will assist the people of Kenya to acquire homes,” he said.
The controversial Finance bill is set to be tabled in Parliament for the Second Reading this week.
The controversial Finance bill is set to be tabled in Parliament for the Second Reading this week.
