Massive Protests Against The 2024 Finance Bill Continue In Nairobi And Across Kenya. Parliament Has Been

Massive protests against the 2024 Finance Bill continue in Nairobi and across Kenya. Parliament has been stormed, and City Hall set on fire.

The bill imposes taxes that will further impoverish those already suffering from the increasing cost of living. The government even tried to put a tax on bread and cooking oil, but this was apparently withdrawn. The International Monetary Fund is putting pressure on president Ruto to impose austerity measures and raise taxes.

Supreme Court staff and lawyers helping demonstrators with water.

Some protestors have been shot, with fatalities. The police have apparently arrested a number of paramedics trying to treat the wounded.

Homes of several MPs who support the finance bill have been looted and set ablaze. I have no sympathy.

A protestor stated:

“We are the flames burning up the country. We cannot stand still while we are robbed and made poor. “This movement will not stop until we have won. They can kill us but they can’t beat down our movement.”

if u watch cobra kai with the mindset that daniel and johnny are exes it’s like 10 times better 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

fashion is so ugly now and memes are so unfunny now and normal people with normal brains use colloquialisms that originated on 4chan and everyone wants to be a model and everyone has acute depression and needs to vlog about it and all the cool people with cool outfits look the same and act like the devil from the Bible so maybe you shouldn’t need to care about keeping up maybe you should care about having a good heart and if animals fw u or not and pleaseeee take that shein haul out of your shopping cart bc its not going to save you or the children who made the clothes

Protests in Kenya

Hey guys, I'm not sure if you've heard, but there are protests happening in Kenya. As someone living in Kenya, I want to keep you updated and inform of what happening, preferably as soon as possible (I've already delayed like a week) before the internet cuts become more serious (which hopefully it doesn't, but you never know. Or there might be national blackout)

Okay, let's start with some context. So I believe it was last Sunday, June 16th was when the Finance Bill was introduced. The Finance Bill basically goes over the budget for the government, and the measures the government is going to take to finance the budget. This bill was widely unpopular because of the amount of taxes introduced on basic necessities, such as bread, feminine hygiene products (pads and stuff), diapers, cars (not buying a new car, but literally just having one on the road), vegetable oil, fuel, and sugar. They even taxed medical treatments, such as cancer treatments and Mpesa, which is a mobile money service that so many across the country use to send and receive money, as well as pay for anything.

This is coupled by the fact that the government doesn't really do all too much for the average Kenyan, so all these extra taxes will not come back to the people. Just in the past month, our president, William Ruto, was going from country to country on our tax dollars. Just in this year alone he has done 20 international visits, and the year is only about halfway done. A lot of the tax dollars go to 'confidential expenditures', which is just whatever the officials want it to be. All of this money being spent by top government officials, but our public school system is not good, we still get frequent power outages (unless you live near State House (where the president lives)), water isn't guaranteed (my family once had no municipal water for months, and had to buy a water tank and supply our own water), youth unemployment is high, healthcare is lacking, the roads are not well built, the cost of living is higher than it's ever been, the shilling is doing badly (especially against the dollar) among many other issues.

So, fed up with all of this excessive taxation, and the corruption of the politicians, many people, especially young people have taken into the streets to protest. If you read Kenyan news, you may hear the word 'maandamano' being used to describe it, just know that it means protests, basically. Starting in Nairobi City Center (or Town, as it's locally called), the protests have spread across the country to almost every major city. Of course with protests comes police pushback.

Teargas has been used against the crowds, although some protestors are brave enough to just through it back to the police. Water cannons have been used, and recently guns. At least 5 people have died in the protests, with a couple hundred injured.

Amidst all of this, the government has decided to amend some parts of the bill, getting rid of some taxes, such as the taxes on cars and Mpesa, or changing some, such as now only imported feminine hygiene products and diapers will be taxed; domestic ones will not. This happened late last week, I believe Friday June 21st or so, and is expected to go into effect July 1st. However, this is still not enough, as the protestors were calling for the bill to be rejected completely, and led to more protests happening yesterday, Tuesday, June 25th, and more planned for tomorrow (Thursday, June 27th). Yesterdays protests were a lot more intense, with the parliment building being breached and set on fire (it didn't burn down in it's entirety), and the crowds being larger than usual.

This led to Safaricom, one of the biggest internet and cell service providers to basically disconnect us yesterday afternoon. As someone who has a Safaricom sim card and home internet, I can confirm that the internet was unbearably slow. Some social media sites, such as Youtube or Pinterest worked, although many things didn't load. Snapchat and Whatsapp worked as well, faster than the first two, but still noticeably slower. I could not get into Tumblr at all yesterday, which is what prompted me to write this long text post. If I disappear for a couple of days, you know what happens. There's also the possibility of a national blackout, but that's kinda not new. Sometimes, Kenya Power is just 'silly' and there's no power in the entire country. It's happened at least once in the past year.

So, what can you do? Personally, I think just being aware and speaking about this is probably one of the best things to do for now. Other than a national blackout, I don't see this situation devolving into full-scale violence, and I'm hoping really hard that it doesn't. If you have any friends or relative in Kenya, perhaps reach out to them and make sure that they're okay. In addition, as you keep the situation of Kenya in mind, be sure to also keep in mind what's happening in other parts of the world, such as Palestine, Congo, and Sudan. We're not free until everyone is free.

Anyways, thanks for reading, I'll drop links for further info below.

PS. I forgot to mention that firstly, we've sent police to Haiti, even though I'm fairly sure that we're not allowed to do that. Secondly, the government has threatened to shut down KTN, a major news broadcasting service in response to this.

PPS. I forgot to mention that this isn't the first time that there were protests against him. It happened around summertime last year as well, although those protests were organized by his main opposition, Raila Odinga, who was basically pulling a Trump. I believe the national blackout happened in the midst of all of that, so my fear for a national blackout is not unfounded.

Update (27/6/24) : So, the finance bill has passed in Parliament, but Ruto has refused to sign it, which you might consider a win, right? Well, not really. Since Parliament has already passed it, if they don't rescind it, it will become law in 21 days. All he's done is kinda bought himself time to oppress the protestors since if Parliament doesn't' rescind it, it'll go into effect later than July 1st.

I'm trying to see if I can find what the government has allocated funds to in order to paint a picture of how the government is misuing our tax money, but I can't seem to find a credible source, just things put on social media. A starting point, for sure. I'll be back this afternoon to continue looking

Also, I'm okay! I'm safe, and will most likely be for the time being! There are some protests near my house but I personally have not physically been at the protests. Today is another scheduled day for protests, so we'll see what comes out of this (hopefully no violence, but I did talk to a guy who went Tuesday, and he said that someone got shot right next to him, so... yikes.)

Okay, I'm back, and here's what I found. This article from the Nation, a Kenyan news source, goes over the budget for the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua. These figures seemed to be the source of what many on social media are quoting, so I'll link the article here.

Nation

MPs question allocation of Sh2.6bn for renovation of Gachagua’s office

Lawmakers take issue with an allocation to renovate the DP's Harambee Annex office and Karen residence.

As well as this video from Tiktok that goes over what the article is saying:

I will list the prices in the infochart from the Tiktok in USD so you can get a sense of how much money this is. Keep in mind that this is just for DP Gachagua alone. Conversion rate is 100 shillings to 0.77 dollars.

Karen Home Renovation (For context, Karen is a wealthy residential area in Nairobi where the deputy president lives): $5,106,382.97 (5.1 million)

Harambee Annex Office (His office) Refurbishment: $3,558,994.19 (3.56 million)

Confidential Expenditure (Whatever he wants it to be without reporting what exactly it was): $6,808,510.63 (6.8 million)

Drug Abuse Fight*: $1,934,235.98 (1.9 million)

Medals: $1,934,235.98 (1.9 million)

Motor Vehicles: $1,547,388.78 (1.5 million)

Household Appliances: $19,342.36

Office Furniture: $290,135.40

Educational Aids*: $15,473.89

Laundry: $16,247.58

Internet Connection: $77,369.44

Accomodation: $704,061.89

Gas: 4,023.21

*The reason the person in the video laughed at this is because politicians here have a history of allocating funds to public works but the money gets taken. That's why a lot of roads are half finished, some official took the money that was meant to finish the road.

Also, to give a sense of the purchasing power of the Kenyan shilling, my daily commute costs about 160 ksh. A six pack of hot dog rolls is 120. Snickers is like 224. I got oatmeal and chia seeds for 789. Some Sony Bluetooth headphones are going for about 7,000. So please let that sink it how much money that is, and why we're so mad and insistent on not paying any more taxes.

en.wikipedia.org

List of international presidential trips made by William Ruto - Wikipedia

List of international presidential trips made by William Ruto - Wikipedia

http://www.parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2024-05/Finance%20Bill%2C%202024_0.pdf

Amnesty International

Authorities in Kenya must release all individuals who have been arbitrarily detained.

These abductions of at least 12 people, which have occurred over the last five days and intensified last night, are a gross violation of hum

Al Jazeera

Several killed as Kenyan police open fire on anti-tax bill protesters

Parts of Parliament building set ablaze as crowd attempts to storm the complex in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

if you can stomach it i would recommend watching the body cam footage of the sonya massey killing, i'll try to describe it but it's hardly possible. you can't truly understand the type of extreme, completely volatile aggression that happens with cops if you haven't seen it, and it's captured here very harrowingly.

several officers are in her house, calmly talking with her about her id and vehicle papers for some time. it's routine administrative stuff, no acute danger or stress whatsoever. one of them tells her to take her pot off the stove, remarking that they don't need a fire in the house now, she walks over into the kitchen and complies. he suddenly backs off towards the front door despite already being several feet away. she asks him where he's going, he says "away from your hot, steaming water." she repeats "my hot, steamin' water?" in an amused tone. then adds "i rebuke you in the name of jesus," in a similar joking tone while pouring the water down the sink. the atmosphere is completely calm, you might even say amiable.

she's at this point still separated from the cops by her kitchen aisle and several feet of additional distance. the cop prompts her to repeat what she said, she repeats her joke about rebuking him in the name of jesus [with the scary water she just poured out]. she doesn't even realise there's been a complete 180 in his head. he goes "you better fucking not, i will shoot you in your fucking face," she's stunned by the sudden abusive language for half a second, immediately he draws his gun directly at her head, she gets out a panicked "sorry!" and ducks behind the aisle, he rounds the corner into the kitchen specifically to advance right next to her, immediately fires 3 shots at her head from above at minimal distance. she's dead where she stood, or cowered rather, by the sink in her nightgown.

after a few seconds you hear the click of him turning on his body cam, saying "she came at me with a pot of boiling water." for the recording. he also nonchalantly tells his partner there's no need to get a med kit because it was a headshot. it's one of the most clear cut cases ever and it's fully recorded only because his partner did already have the body cam on throughout.

Ship wars are so fucking annoying i swear to god, like im sorry, but unless the ship is like problematic (pedo, incest,etc) then who the hell cares.