I've Been Offered Sh200 Million to Drop Finance Act petition – Omtatah

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has now claimed that he has been offered Sh200 million to withdraw his petition against the Finance Act 2023. 

He made the statement at the People's Anti-Corruption Summit held at Ufungamano House in Nairobi on Tuesday, July 11. Omtatah is determined to see the Constitution's principles upheld, arguing that the Act is in violation of them. One of his objections is that the Act does not specify who an employer is for the purpose of benefitting from the deductions.

"Sometimes we get anonymous calls with people saying bullets are not over in Kenya but those are threats and unnecessary temptations we must overcome. We do not have another country other than this one where you can be a citizen so let us not lose it," he said. 

The High Court recently declined to lift the stay on the implementation of the Act, making it impossible to be put into effect. The senator also asserted that the government had lied about the cost of constructing the Standard Gauge Railway. This is one of the projects initiated by the Jubilee administration to spur economic growth.

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project cost the Kenyan government around $3.2 billion (Sh360 billion, or Sh419.84 billion at the current exchange rate), which was mostly borrowed from the Chinese Exim Bank in May 2014. It was intended to provide express cargo transportation from Mombasa to Nairobi as well as passenger services with various inter-county service stations.

On Tuesday, the activist-cum-politician argued that the government is not transparent about the cost of the project. This is not the first time Mr Omtatah has asserted that Kenyans are paying for loans their government never took. During a radio interview on June 7th, he insisted that Kenyans have forked out over Sh1 trillion more than their debt obligation.