By Tajeu Shadrack Nkapapa
The Finance Bill, 2024, which has been a subject of controversy, successfully sailed through the Second Reading in the National Assembly with the support of 204 Members of Parliament, while 115 Members of Parliament opposed it.
Speaker Wetangula also declared that there were no legislators who abstained from voting.
He added that the Bill would be presented once more to the entire House on the following Tuesday.
At this stage, modifications to the Bill will be proposed, and the House will cast their votes on each section.
Subsequently, the Bill will proceed to a Third Reading, during which the House will conduct a final vote to either approve or dismiss it.
If there are disagreements on the Bill or any proposed amendments, it will be referred to a mediation committee.
The committee’s objective is to formulate a revised edition of the Bill that can be deliberated upon and subjected to voting by the House.
However, the opposition MPs were not happy about the Finance Bill 2024 sailing through the second reading.
They went ahead to encourage Kenyans to continue with peaceful demonstrations and reject the bill totally.
“I want to say that today we have voted with Kenyans and they have voted with the oppressors. I want to urge the Gen Zs, Kenyans who are demonstrating, that the demonstrations must never stop. We must achieve the final thing which is to ensure that the oppressor is out of power. Viva Gen Z viva!” Hon Babu Owino said.
“I think it is very sad, after a debate of 2 days and after pumping a lot of sense into the heads of our colleagues, they could not listen and agree with us and it looks like we lost the bill in a very draconian manner,” Junet Mohammed said.
“People were impervious to reasoning. Parliament is in a pandemonium situation, we cannot get out of Parliament, and we have to wait until this chaos ends. I am shocked there are members on our side who voted for the bill,” he added.
All Azimio MPs gathered outside parliament after voting to express their dissatisfaction with the matter.
“Gen Z msilale bado mapambano,” is what they were singing after the majority voted in favour of the controversial Finance Bill 2024.