Attention Kenyans: Landlords Must Pay Rent Tax, The Rich, Housing Levy And The Judiciary Must Stop Corruption
You foolish Kenyans, who bewitched you ? You are all carping and yapping around that the rich and patrimonial landlords among you should not pay tax, that the rich civil servants should not pay housing levy, you are also shamelessly bantering that the Judiciary in Kenya is not corrupt yet there is palpable evidence that culture of corruption is the hall- mark of courts in Kenya at all levels.
Dear foolish Kenyans , let me ask you the question that Paul asked the Galatians , the same guestion that Plato asked the Athenians in his Apologia- who bewitched you?
It is barely evident that 80% of the real estate business in Kenya operates on stolen and unfairly obtained land as a system of patrimonial capitalism thriving its livelihood through parasitic relationship with the poor, women,youths, migrants,job seekers, prostitutes, shebeen keepers and dealers of the soil as the host and landlords as endemic parasites.
You foolish Kenyans have you already forgotten that rapacious and greedy culture of landlordism through its infamous sting of brutal rent collection system is the cause number one of urban rot, depravement and poverty? Have you already forgotten that those landlords and rent collecting grand mothers are the enemies of entrepreneurship among the youths in Nairobi and other urban spaces of Kenya. Those landlords and rent collecting grand mothers suffocate small business with abnormally malicious rent. In a word they are the reasons why Kenya has the highest population of hawkers . Due to inability among the small business owners to afford rent.
How does a land lord and a rent collecting grand mother help the macro-economic agenda of Kenya? Nothing. Patrimonial real estate does not add value to National GDP and National NDP. Instead they are factories that manufacture the poor(read the Conditions of the Working Class in London by Friend- rich Engels). The only way patrimonial capitalist real estate can be useful to the people and the society both in lateral and vertical sense is to have those greedy landlords and rent maniac grand mothers pay rent, infact not less than 30 % of the rent income collected in a tax year.
You foolish Kenyans, please open your eyes and support your government to enforce the policy of rent income tax. I mean ignore those mealy-mouthied and punctured politicians to listen to William Ruto, he has a point--let the landlords pay tax!
Housing levy is the most revolutionary idea. Only those with incorrigible social blindness can oppose it. The poor need good houses. One source of finance for this housing is a progressive system of taxation. The Kenyan civil service spends 40% of its monthly income on consumption of alcohol,what is wrong if the government can make the the alcohol maniac and the carousing patrons in the civil service to support modernization of domestic housing? Please foolish Kenyans, let those who own the pay-slip pay housing levy.
It is not dauntless to see Kenyans saying that the Judiciary in Kenya is not corrupt. Or may be Kenyans don't know corruption? What is corruption? Let me give it empirical definition by getting an example from the Judicial history of Kenya- 'Corruption is things like that ruling by the court made by a woman magistrate , her name was something Atieno or Orient , two years ago in Nairobi ,to send John Waluke to prison for 67 years without relying on any valid or water-tight evidence before the court'.
In a nutshell, law courts in Kenya are corrupt. That is why we have a popular short story in Kenya that- one time an old elephant saw an old gazelle running wild at unspeakable speed, the elephant asked why are you running like this yet you are an elder? The gazelle responded - the police are arresting the goats. But you are not a goat, wondered the elephant. In this country called Kenya it takes you twenty years to convince the court that you are not a goat even if you are an elephant, clarified the gazelle then immediately kept on running at higher speed. The elephant also started running, at speed that is more wild and faster than the gazelle.
Alexander Opicho Writes From , Nairobi, Kenya