Protesters invade House as Finance Bill is approved

A section of Parliament damaged by anti-Finance Bill protestors on June 25, 2024. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Anarchy, bloodshed and destruction rocked Parliament on Tuesday after the August House’s defences were breached by irate protestors shortly after they passed the controversial Finance Bill 2024.

In scenes only akin to the attack on Capitol Hill in 2021 in the USA, protestors in Nairobi broke down a section of the Parliamentary barrier next to the mausoleum where Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta is buried and used it as a gateway to Parliament.

There, they proceeded to lower the national flag, lit fires, destroyed pieces of imported furniture and even stormed both the Senate and the National Assembly chambers.

Inside the chambers, they sat on the Speaker’s chair, and “addressed” the House in mockery of the earlier proceedings before descending on Ipads which they looted, destroyed seats and audio equipment that, had, ironically, just hours before then been used as conduits to announce the passage of the controversial Bill.

Another section of protestors who had managed to overpower the police occupied the MPs lounge, kitchen and canteen where they ate to their fill, destroyed furniture and broke utensils.

“Someone should tell the leadership of this country that they cannot hide in their offices forever. If we have made it this far we will eventually get to them…This is our country and our voices should be heard. The President should heed our calls to reject the Finance Bill or we will take this country back,” one of the protestors was overheard saying.

But after a while, police regrouped and sought support from private security officers protecting the MPs to effectively chase the protestors out of the Parliamentary precincts. This, however, came at a cost as several people were shot dead during the confrontation.

Shortly after and as the crowds continued to surge outside Parliament, contingents of officers from the army and Recce squad could be seen arriving at the scene in a bid to contain the situation. Ambulances too carted the bodies of the victims away.

All the while, a section of the MPs were holed up in their officers shielded by security as others used the Sh150 million and five-meter-wide tunnel that lies beneath a section of Nairobi’s Harambee Avenue as an escape route to the adjacent Bunge towers.

But on arrival at Bunge Towers, they were unable to leave the underground tunnel with their cars and had to be loaded into ambulances and later transported to safety.

Earlier, MPs allied to Kenya Kwanza Alliance outfit had voted to pass the controversial Finance Bill 2024. Despite the protests that had reverberated across the city and many parts of the country about the new taxes, President William Ruto’s hand in the approval of a Bill was apparent as the Kenya Kwanza MPs voted 195 against 109 of their Azimio Coalition counterparts to see the Bill sail through. Only three votes were recorded while there were abstentions.

During a morning session, some of the legislators voted like machines even when the wrong clauses were read out by the Speaker to see the Bill sail through the committee of the whole stage and later the third reading stage.

All the while, their Azimio counterparts engaged in songs and jeering in a bid to persuade their competitors to drop the Bill.

Kenya Kwanza MPs seemingly took advantage of the fact Azimio MPs had withdrawn their earlier proposed amendments and hurriedly passed the amendments proposed by the Finance and National Planning Committee in two hours’ time even without reading the fine print.

This was demonstrated after Finance Committee chair Kimani Kuria wrongly moved amendments to clause 36 instead of clause 34 but the House went ahead to approve the same and it was only that a member of the opposition protested that the matter was rectified.

Notably, as of Monday, a total of 37 MPs had presented amendments to the office of the Speaker of which 14 came from the minority Azimio side which during the debate decided to withdraw their amendments.

Leader of Minority Opiyo Wandayi submitted that the opposition was not intent on participating in a process that was flawed and one that had been rejected by the people.

“If you are keen Mr speaker you will see that a number of amendments dropped are from the Azimio side. We had to drop the amendments because prosecuting them was going to be in vain as we will be sanitizing a process that has already been rejected by Kenyans,” said Wandayi.

The Bill has now proceeded to the President for assent.