The Kenyan parliament approves a draft financial law for 2025
Kenya’s parliament rejected the revenue authority’s request for unfettered access to taxpayer data on Thursday, citing constitutional protections and privacy concerns, and instead approved this year’s proposed finance bill.
Protests against proposed tax hikes resulted in over 60 deaths and compelled President William Ruto to rescind plans to raise 346 billion shillings in taxes, putting pressure on the government to prevent a recurrence of last year’s unrest.
After lawmakers unanimously approved this year’s legislation, President Ruto was able to sign it into law.
The proposal to provide the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) access to the data was rejected by Kenya’s parliamentary finance committee on Monday.
The public reacted negatively to the clause in this year’s financial law since it was thought to violate privacy. The committee stated that the proposal was unnecessary because KRA could obtain financial data with a court warrant under current legislation.
John Mbadi, the finance minister, gave parliament a budget of 4.29 trillion shillings ($33 billion) for the fiscal year 2025–2026 (July–June) last week.
