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Kenyans Promise Continued Protest Amid Leader's Refusal to Sign Controversial Financial Bill

Kenya's President William Ruto on Wednesday 26th of June, 2024 declined to sign a highly contentious finance bill that has sparked nationwide deadly protests in the country, sending it back to parliament for amendments.

Kenyan protesters vowed to keep up their demonstrations against new tax hikes, a day after police opened fire on crowds trying to storm Parliament, leaving at least 13 people dead and scores wounded. 

One of the protest organizers, Hanifa Adan, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that they would go to the streets on Thursday in memory of those she called "our fallen people."

Hanifa, posting from Nairobi said "You cannot kill all of us. Tomorrow we march peacefully again as we wear white, for all our fallen people."

Many supporters of the protest movement took to X, using the hashtag #tutanethursday, others wrote "see you on Thursday" in a mix of their native Swahili language and English.

According to The Star, a popular Kenyan newspaper, the President in a televised address to the nation from the State House, said for every Sh100 the government collects in taxes, Sh61 goes into paying off the country’s debt.

“We have paid Kenya’s Eurobond debt that was borrowed in 2014 of 2 billion dollars that has been hanging around our neck. We paid the last instalment of $500 million last week," Ruto said.

Ruto said that given the sustained commitment to rid itself of the debt burden, the country’s debt obligation is today much less and more sustainable.

State House sources earlier told The Star that the Head of state has also declined to assent to the Bill.

President William Ruto has warned that his government would use all means at its disposal to prevent a repeat of the violence — "at whatever cost."