President Uhuru Kenyatta has refused to sign into law the controversial Information Communication Technology Practitioners Bill, commonly known as the ICT Bill.
The Bill, along with the Insurance Professionals Registration Bill of 2020 and the Higher Education Loans Bill of 2020, was returned to Parliament by the President on Tuesday with memoranda after being presented to him for signing by State House Deputy Chief of Staff Njee Muturi.
The Bill, which was approved by the National Assembly less than a fortnight ago, attracted backlash from Kenyans who termed it ridiculous.
The Bill required that all ICT practitioners, including those with basic skills such as building a website, must get licences to be allowed to operate.
However, the Head of State signed into law ten parliamentary bills, including the 2022 Appropriation Bill, Supplementary Appropriation Bill, and Finance Bill.
Other bills that were made into law include the 2021 Radiographers Bill; National Electronic Single Window Bill; Traffic (Amendment) Bill; National Government Development Fund (Amendment) Bill; Supreme Court (Amendment) Bill of 2022; County Allocation of Revenue Bill; and the Mental Health Bill.
“The second Supplementary Appropriation Bill of 2022 makes available a total of Ksh.88,822,649,842 for Government expenditure on public services among them the fuel stabilization fund which has been allocated Ksh.49,292,440,866,” PSCU said in a statement.
“Other uses of the funds include drought mitigation interventions such as provision of relief food; the national fertilizer subsidy programme; settlement of ongoing road construction bills which has been allocated Ksh.26.7 billion; and social protection and safety net measures assigned Ksh.1.5 billion.”
The Teachers Service Commission has been allocated Sh2.1 billion for salaries and related recurrent expenses while Sh1.37 billion has been earmarked for ongoing improvement of primary school infrastructure.
