12/06/2026
This Budget Is Not For Common Mwananchi
I’ve read the Finance Bill 2026. And I’m saying it plainly: this is not a budget for hustlers, farmers, boda guys, mitumba traders, or content creators. This is a budget that protects the rich and punishes the poor.
Here are the pressing areas of concern for Kenyan men and women:
1. Mitumba Business Under Attack
Millions depend on second-hand clothes for income + affordable dressing. Higher duties/excise on imported used clothing + stricter clearance rules are killing jobs in Gikomba, Kongowea, and every market. You can’t “industrialize” by destroying what already employs people without a replacement industry.
2. Agriculture Starved of Funds
Food is the first economy. Yet allocations to agriculture/inputs subsidies have been cut while costs of fertilizer, fuel, seeds, and transport keep rising. You can’t talk food security while defunding farmers. A nation that doesn’t feed itself is not independent.
3. Security Over Production
Billions more for guns, bullets, and security agencies. We’re not against safety or going to the war. But when security gets billions while factories farmers, MSMEs, and manufacturing get peanuts, the message is clear: this budget protects wealth, not creates it. More bullets for the rich, less capital for the hustler.
4. Industrialization & Jobs Killed
No real incentives for local factories, value addition, or exports. High taxes on raw materials + machinery + power mean manufacturers can’t compete. Without production, we keep importing goods and exporting jobs.
5. Smartphones & Digital Jobs Taxed Higher
Phones are not luxuries - they’re tools of work. Higher import duty/VAT/excise on smartphones + new levies on digital services kill online jobs, freelancing, content creation, M-Pesa business, and digital learning. Youth are being taxed out of the only growing economy we have. Phones should be zero-rated, not punished.
6. More Punitive Clauses Squeezing Households:
-Eco Levy/“Green Taxes” Expansion: New levies on packaging, electronics, diapers, sanitary pads, and basic goods. Costs get passed to mothers and small shops.
-VAT on Essentials: Proposals to tax bread, unga, milk, and other basic foods or remove exemptions. Food becomes a taxable item, not a right.
-Housing Levy Increases/Withholding: Higher deductions from payslips/salaries for housing + health. More money off your payslip before you even see it.
- Digital Content & Online Services Tax: Higher taxes on streaming, cloud services, software, and platform fees. Direct hit on creators, developers, and SMEs who sell online.
-Motorbike/Boda & Fuel Levies: Increased excise/levies on bikes, spare parts, and fuel. That’s a direct tax on transport + delivery jobs.
- Withholding Tax on Small Traders: Lower thresholds mean Jua kali, mitumba, and market traders now face WHT/remittance burdens they can’t comply with without accountants.
-“Turnover Tax”/Presumptive Tax Expansion: More small businesses pulled into minimum tax regimes even when they make losses.
7. The Rich-Poor Gap Keeps Widening
This budget blends with capital: protections for investments, tax relief for big firms, but high taxes on consumption and tools of trade for commoners. Meanwhile rent, school fees, food, and transport keep rising. The gap isn’t a gap anymore - it’s a canyon.
Bottom line:
A government that kills mitumba, starves agriculture, ignores production, taxes smartphones, and adds eco/turnover levies is not building a nation. It’s managing decline.
Kenya’s men and women deserve a budget that funds farms, factories, skills, and digital work. Not one that funds more guns + levies while strangling livelihoods.
Jeremia Muia
Makueni County
Edwin W. Sifuna Kalonzo Musyoka H.E. Rigathi Gachagua, EGH. Babu Owino
