How housing levy is quickly becoming Ruto's 2027 campaign slogan

When President William Ruto hosted teachers at State House recently, the meeting ended with more than just nice pleasantries, developments rhetoric and good food. It ended with a carrot. He signed a MoU with teachers, which will guarantee them 20 percent of the houses under the affordable housing programme. His reasoning was that since teachers contribute more than 13 percent of the levy, they deserved a larger slice of the pie.

This came hot on the heels of other promises to other groups, including the police and even Harambee Stars, who had also been assured priority access to the new units. The list of “special beneficiaries” is growing very fast. But with each new pledge, one uncomfortable question lingers so what percentage of houses would actually remain for mama mboga, the boda boda rider, the mjengo worker, the jua kali artisan, and the slum dweller—the very people the President promised that the levy was originally meant to uplift?

This is the tragedy of a policy that was originally sold to Kenyans as a national project to address the real crisis of housing. The housing levy was defended in Parliament and in court with lofty promises of fairness, equity, and transparency in the allocation of units. Kenyans were told it would be managed through a structured system insulated from politics. They were also assured that distribution would be above board, not dependent on which sector you belong to or how loudly your union can sing praises at State House. The programme was justified as a solution to urban squalor – meant to uplift millions in slums and informal settlements who live without dignity, security, or basic amenities.

However, that noble promise is slowly unraveling. What was meant to be a national policy has been reduced to a political carrot dangled before whichever group the President needs to court for his 2027 re-election bid. And this is the same President who constantly rebukes his opponents for engaging in “politics of deceit” and for lacking a solid plan for the country. Ironically, he now appears deeply immersed in his own brand of deception, as he is turning the housing project into a bargaining chip for his reelection. The contradiction is stark, and the manipulation impossible to miss.

The double speak is everywhere. One moment, the levy is presented as a shared national sacrifice to solve a collective problem. The next, it becomes a campaign tool, selectively rewarding groups in exchange for loyalty. Last week, the President stood before a delegation from Murang’a and pledged them 29 billion shillings in housing projects. This week in Kilifi, he promised another 18 billion from the same housing fund. Who will be next in the promise queue – nurses and doctors, members of the clergy, the lawyers, university students, or even journalists? The country has been reduced to a waiting line where groups troop to State House or state lodges not to debate policy or present development scorecards but to secure their percentage of the housing scheme.

It would be laughable if it were not tragic that Kenyans continue to be taxed every month in the name of the housing levy, yet instead of a transparent, equitable process, they are treated to a theatre of promises. The same President who once insisted this programme was about empowering ordinary Kenyans to live with dignity is now auctioning the fruits of the levy to whichever group can secure an audience with him.

But perhaps the bigger problem, is not just the President. It is the people who listen, clap and cheer him during such moments. Take for instance, when teachers, the assumed backbone of intellectual life in this country, cheer, dance lame and celebrate promises that are nakedly political, one has to ask so where is their sense of responsibility? Teachers are supposed to be society’s conscience, the ones who instill values of fairness and justice in the next generation. Instead, they have allowed themselves to be reduced to passive recipients, waiting for a share of a pie baked from their own hard sweat contributions. If the country’s educators cannot stand up to such obvious political deceptions, then who will?

This housing carrot is not an isolated trick. It is part of a wider playbook in which the so-called ‘economic empowerment’ programmes are rolled out across the country – the ‘boda boda empowerment,’ handouts to women’s groups, and endless preaching about the Hustler Fund. Each of these events are unveiled with fanfare, each paraded as proof of progress. Yet behind the noise, many are walking home empty handed and now with the Hustler Fund already sinking under billions in defaults and citizens growing more disillusioned. More often, these schemes run in parallel, while the President dangles housing promises in one corner of the country, his deputy is in another county launching an ‘empowerment’ drive. One script, many stages.

And so, affordable housing has become President Ruto’s flagship success project, just as he pushes his Cabinet Secretary for Health, Aden Duale, to ‘fix’ the Social Health Insurance Authority (SHA). Together, these two schemes are being polished as Kenya Kwanza’s pet projects for 2027 campaign slogans. Instead of being guided by law, fairness, and sound policy, they are being steered by campaign instincts.

This is how national projects are converted into personal reelection tools. Today it is teachers promised 20 percent, tomorrow it will be nurses promised 10 percent, and the next day another group promised 15 percent. Soon, there will be nothing left for the ordinary Kenyan who does not belong to any organized bloc or union. They will still pay the levy, but when the houses are built, they will be told to wait at the back of the line because others are more ‘deserving.

The danger is that by the time we get to 2027, the housing levy, SHA and other projects will no longer be national programmes. They will be campaign chest, its benefits already shared out in exchange for votes.  Handouts will not transform this country into the Singapore the President so often invokes and tokenism cannot substitute for deliberate, sound policy. If we cannot call this out, then we are complicit in our own deception.