By
Macharia Kihuro
Development Finance Expert
The Affordable Housing Levy has become one of Kenya’s most contested fiscal policies. While the government presents it as a pillar of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, many employees see it as another mandatory deduction shrinking already stretched pay packets.
Housing is a basic right and central to people’s lives. As John F. Kennedy observed in a 1946 speech on housing, “The home is the central unit of the community, the state, and the nation.” That principle still applies today.
