Bill
Imenti North MP Rahim Dawood has finally opened up on the reasons behind supporting the 2024/2025 finance bill that has since been suspended by President William Ruto.
Addressing Journalists in Meru Town, Mr Dawood said that from the bill, Meru County was set to benefit from Sh1.6billion worth of development projects with Imenti North receiving the lion’s share of more than Sh600million.
“I want to tell my supporters that I take the full responsibility of supporting the finance bill. The main reason is that I knew what we as a constituency would get out of the same and that most of the controversial clauses that had roused people’s anger were already deleted,” said Mr Dawood.
Mr Dawood added that before taking the decision, he had widely consulted various leaders and stakeholders from the constituency on the same.
“I took the initiative of consulting various leaders including my political competitors who are part of key stakeholders in the region and they told me that as long as the contentious clauses had been dealt away with, I could move on and support the bill,” said Dawood.
“I can’t regret voting yes because about 18 clauses were removed including that on increasing Value Added Tax (VAT) on bread, vehicles, sanitary pads, among others,” he explained. Mr Dawood however said that this was water under the bridge as the finance bill was already dropped.
“I will now be focusing on convincing the President to retain our constituency’s development projects which is the most important thing at the moment,” said Mr Dawood.
On destruction of his property in Meru town during the protests held three weeks ago, Dawood said that he regrets that some politicians hired goons to perpetrate the crime which left him counting losses amounting to millions.
“I want to tell my political opponents who paid goons to destroy my property that they should avoid racism since it is outdated. Let us compete in terms of development and not petty issues,” he said. He sent condolences to the bereaved families adding that it was unfortunate that they lost their beloved ones in unfortunate circumstances that should have been avoided.
