President Ruto link shadowy tax evaders to Raila protests financing
President William Ruto has accused tax evaders of being behind the weekly political rallies staged by Azimio One Kenya coalition leader Raila Odinga.
According to the President, tax cheats have been financing the opposition to slow him down on his efforts to get big defaulters to pay what they owe the government.
“Even if they sponsor demonstrations so that they don’t pay tax, I want to promise them that they will pay tax. There are no more expectations. This country is not an animal farm, where some are more equal than others,” Ruto said.
While addressing his supporters at the Jacaranda grounds, Raila had called on Kenyans to reject what he termed as punitive taxes that have been introduced by the Kenya Kwanza regime.
The President however maintained that every Kenyan was obligated to pay taxes regardless of their social or political status.
He said that there were leaders trying to whip up public emotions about the high cost of living and taxation so as to maneuver their way out of paying taxes.
President Ruto said that Raila’s claims that former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairperson Wafula Chebukati visited his home before the elections cannot go unchallenged.
Ruto instead asked the opposition leader to disclose why he invited the IEBC officials to his home.
“Yesterday I was listening to one of our politicians who was alleging that IEBC officials went to his house. He is telling these stories five months after the act. He is volunteering this information with insinuations that the officials went for something he has not disclosed,” Ruto said.
President Ruto questioned how a presidential candidate ended up inviting officials of an electoral agency to his house during election period.
Speaking while opening the 16th Annual General Meeting and Conference of Africa Prosecutors Association in Mombasa county, he asked why the opposition leader did not present the claims to the Supreme court.
Raila had claimed that Chebukati and commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu had visited his home during the August polls.
He challenged the three to come clean on the purpose of the visit as he claimed to possess CCTV footages of the three in his house and challenged them to state what they demanded for during the visit.
“Chebukati said that there were people who tried to bribe them to moderate the election results. But they should also come clean on what they were doing in my house and what they asked for. I have CCTV footages and if they continue playing with our minds, I will release it,” he said.
According to Raila, the public consultative meetings will continue in various parts of the country with the next stops in Kamukunji in Kibra and Machakos Town once he returns from Nigeria and Senegal.
