بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Kenya’s 2018/2019 Budget is Tightened Nooses on the Necks of Despaired Citizens!
By: Ali Nassoro Ali*
The tax proposals submitted through the 2018 Finance Bill are designed to generate an additional Ksh 27.5 billion in tax revenue for the FY 2018/19. The 2018/2019 budget deficit of Ksh 558.9 billion (equivalent to 5.7 percent of GDP) will be financed by net external financing amounting to Ksh 287.0 billion (equivalent to 3.0 percent of GDP) while other domestic financing will amount to Ksh 271.9 billion (equivalent to 2.8 percent of GDP). Official statistics show that the latest acceleration in the debt pile up was mainly from external borrowing, which pushed total outstanding foreign debt to Sh2.563 trillion as at the end of February. Domestic debt, which is more current having included last month’s data, now stands at Sh2.448 trillion, making for a total Sh5.011 trillion!
The people of Kenya followed the reading of the budget 2018/2019 speech on Thursday 14 June 2018, with deep breath and full of anxiety as they braced themselves for further painful daylight robbery of their few coins from their pockets for another consecutive year by secular mafia capitalists to fund their an unquenchable thirst to see an imaginary growth of GDP! As always, the people of Kenya were stuck with no option to salvage their already miserable poverty-stricken lifestyles under the current Jubilee regime that is notoriously famous for taxing the citizens to their core and plugging the deficit with crazy borrowing spree after which almost a third of the budget is lost in looting!
Kenya like any secular state, its capitalist economic system demands that taxation and borrowing be the only the primary sources of government income. Through taxation and interest-based loans, the government can be able to run by meeting its expenditure demands What is shocking is that Kenya is a country blessed with vast resources e.g. mineral deposits, arable land, vast water bodies and recently discovered soft-oil deposits etc. could propel Kenya to global economic liberation if were to be fully utilized! However, currently almost all the vast resources have been privatized and handed over to western owned companies who in return remit meagre royalties to the Kenyan government while overwhelming income is shipped abroad and benefitting western countries’ economy at the expense of Kenya’s economy!
The heart of the problem in Kenya is the implementation of a colonial secular capitalist ideology from which the capitalist economic system emanates. Its viewpoint to colonial states like Kenya; is that of a water-dam where the colonialists just come with all manner of fetching tools to fetch their most able share, as Britain and US does to date, now China has joined on board with its so-called ‘unsecured fishy’ loans. While the colonialists ship out the vast resources, on the other hand they give us long-term exorbitant interest-based loans to ensure we will not be able to pay them on time and instead revert to them for further loan uptake to sustain the economy! As long as the capitalist economic system is implemented, Kenya’s economic emancipation is unfounded!
Islam under the Khilafah (Islamic State) re-established upon the methodology of the Prophet (saw), will be executed comprehensively including the Islamic economic system emanating from it. The Islamic economic policy will be to secure the satisfaction of all basic needs for every individual completely, and to enable him to satisfy his luxuries as much as he can as person living in a particular society that has a certain way of life. That means the Khilafah will address the basic problems of everyone as human beings, who live according to a particular relationship, then enabling them to raise their standard of living and achieve comfort for themselves according to a particular fashion of life. Hence, the Islamic economic system is unique and different from all other economic policies in existence today in the world.
In the Khilafah (Islamic State) the Bait ul-Mal (The State Treasury) will include the following revenue sources: booties (Fai’), spoils (Ghana’im), land tax (Kharaj), head tax (Jizya), different types of public property revenues, the revenues of the State properties, the tithes (Ushr), the fifth of the hidden treasure (Rikaz), the minerals, and the funds of the Zakat. Note: The tax mentioned here (Land Tax & Head tax) should not be mistaken as the ones currently being imposed on people by the secular regimes. Taxation and interest-loans are prohibited in Islam. The Khilafah will not impose taxes upon certain citizens except in some cases such as famine and Jihad. However, the tax is only, taken on the wealth that surpasses that which an individual normally uses to satisfy his basic needs and luxuries. Hence, it achieves the right of livelihood for everyone individually, and facilitates the securing of the luxuries. At the same time Islam sets certain limits within which the individual can earn in order to satisfy his basic needs and luxuries and organize his relationships with others according to a particular system.
Kenya and in general Africa’s renaissance lies in replacing the secular capitalist ideology and its filthy systems emanating from it including that of Mafia democracy, exploitative economic system and social liberalism etc, which are the source of its miseries and catastrophes plaguing it. Alternatively, embrace the Khilafah Project under the Call for Islamic Revival, which currently reverberates across the world and whose re-establishment on the methodology of the Prophet (saw) will propel Kenya and Africa to a greater civilization full of tranquility, peace and prosperity never witnessed before throughout the secular colonial grip!
* Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Kenya
* Written for Ar-Rayah Newspaper – Issue 190
2. https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001284223/kenya-s-most-painful-budget-speech-in-full