Lang'ata Member of Parliament (MP) Phelix Odiwuor alias Jalang'o has blamed content creators for causing the 15 per cent tax proposal in the Finance Bill 2023 by flaunting their wealth online.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, the lawmaker asserted that Kenyan content creators only had themselves to blame since they continuously advertised their wealth on social media leading to the proposal.
He said that the opulence displayed by the creators made it difficult for him to defend digital creators before the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning.
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"How do I convince the government or the people who do not understand content creation that content creators don't have money and you are not able to pay the 15 per cent tax when what you show out there is that you are millionaires?" he posed.
"They came to me and told me that comedian Oga Obinna has turned 33 and he says he has gifted himself a very small gift and this small gift Obina has gifted himself is a VW Touareg 2017- 2019 which would easily cost him Ksh5 to Ksh6 million depending on the showroom where he bought the car. Do you know how long it will take a teacher to save to ever buy that car?" Jalang'o posed.
He noted that Obinna's story was just a single case, to which they showed him a clip of socialite Amber Ray flaunting that she spends Ksh300,000 on a daily basis.
At the same time, they also showed him pages of other content creators such as comedian Eric Omondi who was vocal against the Finance Bill 2023.
"This month or the last month Eric made more than Ksh10million from content creation or even more. If you go to his Instagram page, you can see he is doing advertisements, and his rate card doesn't come cheap and that is just last month and its content creation," he stated.
He also referenced Mulamwah's page, Eve Mungai, Natalie Tewa and other top content creators whose pages displayed opulence and subsequently underscored that the lavish lifestyle and opulence that the content creators were displaying was compelling the government to enhance the tax proposal set for debate this month.
While fingering the aforementioned creators, Jalang'o further opined that they will have to seek a solution and come up with an agreement on how much they are willing to part with should the controversial Bill pass.
"The government does not see your wealth to congratulate you, it sees an opportunity and asks where you got the money from. You people brought this problem to yourself and the government will not relent. What we need to do is come up with how much we are willing to give," he stated.
