We will never drop Housing Levy - Lands CS ALICE WAHOME vomits on Gen Zs as demonstrations continue

 

Tuesday, July 2, 2024 - Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome has dismissed a push by Gen Z protesters to repeal the housing levy.

Speaking in the South B area of Nairobi, Wahome explained that over 100,000 housing units were already in the pipeline across the country.

As a result, she noted that should the state discontinue the levy, the projects would be considered dead capital and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

"I already have over 100,000 housing units. If I stopped at this stage, then that would be a dead capital investment and it is Kenyans' money," she stated.

Wahome was responding to mounting pressure from protesters who termed the housing levy, deducted at a rate of 1.5 per cent, as punitive to salaried workers even as the cost of living skyrockets.

CS Wahome further told the press that the state was in the process of revising the Land Laws to curb landgrabbers from getting away with state land.

She explained that loopholes in the existing laws were aiding the perpetrators to hive off public land, resulting in a lengthy court battle.

"As soon as we finish with the policy, we will be able to look at the Land Law and do an amendment of the law to capture various serious loopholes and gaps that the landgrabbers are using including how we deal with land belonging to the public that was grabbed and developed," she noted.