The government has made major changes on key tax proposals in the 2024/2025 budget, among them setting aside money to confirm JSS teachers on permanent and pensionable terms.
In a press briefing today by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, the taxes have been scrapped to accommodate the views of Kenyans who have made their frustrations known for few weeks now on social and other media.
The education sector is one of the areas that have seen changes from the proposed estimates announced last week by the Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) Njuguna Ndung’u.
The Finance Committee revealed that it has allocated a sum of Ksh18 billion to the teacher employer, Teachers Service Commission (TSC), to facilitate the employment of all the 46,000 Junior Secondary School (JSS) interns on Permanent and Pensionable (PnP) terms.
The figure is relatively high from an earlier proposal by Ndung’u of Ksh13.4 billion for the conversion of the JSS teachers who one month ago spent a better part of their time in the streets protesting.
This is a huge relief for teachers who had started to worry as TSC had originally estimated that Ksh16.6 billion would be needed to complete the conversion, resulting in a substantial funding gap.
Similarly, the MPs were told that the funds have also been provided to hire 20,000 interns next month since the policy is now to transition teachers from internship to permanent and pensionable terms and institutions still need more teachers due to an increased enrollment experienced in schools.
Other taxes which have been exempted include; 16 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on bread , VAT on transportation of sugar, VAT on financial services and foreign exchange transactions, no increase on mobile money transfer, 2.5 per cent Motor Vehicle Tax, and excise duty on vegetable oil.
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