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Several people were reported killed and scores injured by police gunfire during nationwide anti-tax protests in Kenya on Tuesday as protesters stormed the country’s parliament.
At least eight people were killed, local broadcaster KTN reported, citing paramedic services. The Kenya Human Rights Commission said police were “firing live rounds” at demonstrators.
Eyewitnesses said parts of Kenya’s parliament were on fire as lawmakers were reportedly evacuating the building amid the crackling of live ammunition and clouds of tear gas.
Police tried to disperse mostly young protesters chanting “Ruto must go!” amid mounting anger over government plans to raise more than $2bn in new taxes to fill holes in the deeply indebted country’s budget.
Earlier on Tuesday, lawmakers had passed a bill ramping up taxes. The law is now awaiting the assent of President William Ruto.
“Ruto is using the finance bill to impose heavy taxation on Kenyans,” said 25-year-old Davis Tafari, one of the youngsters leading the protests, calling the tax bill “punitive and draconian”.
“We will make sure to continue with demonstrations until Ruto is gone,” he added.
Young Kenyans, many of them jobless, have been organising on social media in a wave of anger about the higher taxes, resulting in a series of protests over the past week in east Africa’s most advanced economy.
The planned tax rises aim to bring in an additional $2.3bn of revenue in the fiscal year that starts next week. Ruto wants to reduce the budget deficit from 5.7 per cent of GDP in the current financial year to 3.3 per cent of GDP in the next as he tries to improve Kenya’s fiscal position, partly to comply with an IMF programme that requires Nairobi to increase revenues.
Thousands of protesters poured on to the streets last week, holding placards bearing slogans such as “We ain’t IMF bitches” and livestreaming the demonstrations on their phones.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said security forces had “abducted” prominent critics of the tax proposals, seizing many from their homes under cover of darkness.
Treasury secretary Njuguna Ndung’u has warned that failing to push through the tax increases in the bill risked creating a $1.5bn hole in the budget.
The government had said that if the bill did not pass it would be forced to cut spending, including slashing government support to a school food programme and the lossmaking flag carrier Kenya Airways if the bill fails.
Ruto, a self-styled “hustler” with a rags-to-riches story, took office in 2022 vowing to ease the financial burden on Kenyans. But he has faced mass protests after removing fuel subsidies and levying new taxes — earning him the moniker “Zakayo”, the Swahili name for the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus.
After protests first broke out last Tuesday, when the bill was tabled in parliament for debate, the government yielded to public pressure, promising to withdraw planned taxes on bread, cooking oil, locally made nappies and other products. But by Thursday the protests had spread to almost half of Kenya’s 47 counties.
The protesters’ “occupy parliament” campaign is calling for a “total shutdown” of the country and demanding that Ruto completely drop the finance bill.
Interest payments on Kenya’s debt have been eating up almost 38 per cent of revenues, according to the World Bank.
In January, “in light of ongoing balance of payments pressures”, the IMF said, it gave Kenya an additional $941mn loan, part of a $3.9bn bailout that started in 2021, when Ruto was deputy president.
Officials at multilateral lenders say they are willing to continue extending credit to one of Africa’s more pro-business countries, provided it continues fiscal consolidation and increases revenue collection.
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