Police out in force as Kenyans protest tax hikes

Police were out in force on Friday as Kenyans took to the streets in answer to an opposition call to demonstrate over a raft of controversial tax hikes.

Tear gas was fired to break up protests in the Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa, television images showed, as people chanted “the struggle is not over”.

Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Azimio alliance called for anti-government protests over the impact of the new taxes on Kenyans already suffering from a severe cost-of-living crisis.

“(President William) Ruto is imposing taxes on us without our consent and making laws whose net effect is to make life increasingly difficult,” Azimio said in a statement issued earlier this week.

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Ruto had last week signed into law a finance bill which is expected to generate more than $2.1 billion for the government’s depleted coffers and help repair the heavily indebted economy.

The Finance Act provides for new taxes or increases on a range of basic goods such as fuel and food and mobile money transfers, as well as a controversial levy on all taxpaying Kenyans to fund a housing scheme.

But the high court in Nairobi last Friday suspended implementation of the legislation after a senator filed a case challenging its constitutional legality.

Despite the ruling, Kenya’s energy regulator later that day announced a hike in pump prices to take account of the doubling of VAT to 16 percent as stipulated in the law.

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In Nairobi’s central business district, where main government buildings are located, police were patrolling on foot, in vehicles and on horseback, while several roads in the capital were closed.

In the lakeside city of Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold, a man in a vehicle mounted with a loudspeaker was mobilising residents to turn out.

“We must listen to Baba (as Odinga is known), he said we have to demonstrate today, come out and join us to liberate our country,” he said.

The protests have been dubbed “Saba Saba” (Seven Seven) as they are taking place on the seventh day of the seventh month.