President Ruto’s Commitment To Affordable Housing Is Unstoppable

By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga

Worth Noting:

• Sometimes back I wrote an opinion article in this column zeroing in on petitions filed in courts by the opposed to Dr Ruto’s housing plan.
• At the time a High Court judge had directed on the consolidation of six petitions. This decision was informed by the fact that the grounds cited were similar.
• The judge, however, declined to rule in favor of petitioners’ prayer to stop the government from implementing the project until the cases were heard and determined.
• The cases were filed after President William Ruto signed the newly enacted Bill into law. As expected, the government immediately filed a counter-suit.

The construction of affordable houses for Kenyans was one of the key pillars of campaign manifesto of the Kenya Kwanza presidential candidate William Samoei Ruto, now the 5th President of the Republic of Kenya.

The President kept assuring Kenyans particularly hundreds of thousands of low income earners who were living in slums in urban centers, that he meant his word.

I’m aware of the shame and indignity that you going through in these slums. This will now become a thing of the past if you elect me President.

My government will build decent houses for you in compliance with provisions of the constitution-the Bill of Rights-which recognizes Shelter as one of the basic rights.

We will approach and request well-endowed Kenyans, donors and private sector to financially support this noble course.

The President Ruto has since been walking the talk and he has so far launched the affordable housing projects in all counties.

He has been working closely with the county governments in these endeavors.

However, the going has not been a smooth sailing. The President’s critics have been throwing all manners of spanner in the work.

But the President would leave no doubt that he is not a pushover. He is a hard nut to crack and this explains why he has so far outmanoeuvred them.

Sometimes back I wrote an opinion article in this column zeroing in on petitions filed in courts by the opposed to Dr Ruto’s housing plan.

At the time a High Court judge had directed on the consolidation of six petitions.

This decision was informed by the fact that the grounds cited were similar.

The judge, however, declined to rule in favor of petitioners’ prayer to stop the government from implementing the project until the cases were heard and determined.

The cases were filed after President William Ruto signed the newly enacted Bill into law.

As expected, the government immediately filed a counter-suit.

As we know, the judges are always guided by the law, constitution and precedents in arriving at their final determinations.

The petitioners wanted Kenyans to believe that the affordable housing project is a function of the county governments.

But those who understand the law would disagree.

The function of housing is a shared responsibility between the national government and counties. This new law have addressed this issue.

After the President discharged his constitutional mandate and signed the new Affordable Housing Bill into law, one of the mainstream print media houses published a screaming headline titled ‘Ruto has his way’.

This headline was totally misleading.

It is the people of Kenya who had won but not President William Ruto.

If Kenyans were opposed to this housing plan one would not have expected them to overwhelmingly elect Dr William Ruto during 2022 polls.

The new Bill had been enacted by parliament as required by the law. The State had earlier scored big after it managed to convince the benches of the High Court and Court of Appeal to struck out the petitions filed by those opposed to the Housing plan.

This demonstrated the commitment of President William Ruto to protect and uphold the constitution and other laws of the land.

As law making body, parliament kicked off the process by conducting public participation. After collecting and collating the views of the public, the relevant house committees drafted the bill. The bill later sailed through. Of 199 members present, 141 voted in support of the bill while 66 rejected it.

As required by the law, the bill was forwarded to the Senate for concurrence. It became the law after President Ruto assented to it

As we know his predecessors-Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta-efforts to rollout the affordable housing project did not yield much. So, if President William Ruto succeeds this will shape up his legacy.

Commenting about the petitions filed in courts, the President would aver. I know my critics were working in cahoot with corrupt judicial officers. The officers resorted to sabotaging my agenda of housing after receiving hefty bribes from them.

Their machinations are bound to fail.

At one point, the President held a meeting with Chief Justice Martha Koome and Speaker of national assembly Moses Wetangula.

Sources indicated that the President took unprecedented move when he declassified some intelligence reports which he shared with CJ. He disclosed that corrupt judges were working hand in hand with corrupt and rogue lawyers.

As the CJ, the buck stops with you. The people of Kenya expects you to tame members of your team. The corrupt riddled judges must be shown the door.

On his part, the President assured the CJ of his commitment to eradicate corruption in the executive.

The three judge bench of Court of Appeal had upheld the High Court order allowing the government to continue collecting the housing levy until an appeal is heard and determined.

So the change of heart by a bench of same court was bound to raise queries. Was the decision based on law or it was an escalation of the ongoing war. What has changed? The ruling was later overturned after the government filed a petition to counter it and managed to argue its case.

I had earlier listened to President William Ruto’s interview when he hosted journalists from different media houses at State House Nairobi.

One of the journalist told him. You rode to power on a platform of promising to respect and uphold the constitution and other laws of the land but today you are doing the opposite.

In his response, the President told him this is not true. I have been walking the talk in terms of respecting the constitution and decisions of the courts.

On housing levy, you the people of the media are to blame for misinterpreting that ruling. The problem of unconstitutional was indeed created by you.

That is not what the bench of the three judges stated. The bench only took issue with what they termed as discriminative aspects of the law.

The president further noted. The housing plan is a noble idea whose time has come. As I speak to you, It has created 120,000 jobs. The job opportunities are set to increase to 200,000 and 500,000 in coming days.

The mega project resonated very well with Ruto’s concept of bottom up economic model and was designed to address two main challenges: joblessness and lack of decent houses.

The President announced that 250,000 affordable housing units will be constructed in the first phase.

He said the housing project is being opposed by those  employed who received a payslip every month.

For opposition leaders, he stated each was pocketing a pension of more than 1 million from the National Treasury per month.

These are the same personalities who say they love you and were ready to die for you. Really, do they?

At the time, the Affordable Housing Plan was one of the proposals contained in the controversial Finance Bill 2023.

The ‘Hustlers’ (those without a payslips) had been excluded. The judges now say this is discriminatory.

The affordable housing plan is a game-changer. For the first time in our history, the sons and daughters of the hustlers will own decent houses.

Initially Ruto’s critics wanted Kenyans to believe that he was forcing the levy down their throat.

I totally disagree. The President had no legal mandate to pass this proposal into law. This power is exercised by parliament.

For starters, the government is made up of three main arms: parliament, executive and Judiciary.

During the campaigns the proposal to build affordable housing units stood out as one of the key plank of Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition manifesto.

If elected President, the coalition’s flag bearer Raila Odinga had promised to rollout a massive affordable housing plan. Majority of our people, who migrated to urban centers, were living in poor and highly deplorable conditions in slums. ‘My government’ will build decent houses for you. This is a commitment I have given you.

Raila would add: A huge chunk of the money to build these houses will come from our pockets. He would single out those employed, civil servants, state officers and other workers.

Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and social commentator