By Isaac Dan Bw’Onyancha
As President William Ruto races across the country launching housing projects with fanfare, Kenyans must urgently interrogate whether the Affordable Housing Programme remains true to its constitutional purpose or whether it has been hijacked and reduced to political tokenism.
What was meant to deliver permanent, decent home ownership for ordinary citizens is now quietly morphing into a vehicle for non-residential infrastructure: hostels in TVET institutions, stalls in markets, and even county stadia, all deceptively branded under “affordable housing.”
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Recently, the President went further and announced that the uniformed forces will soon enjoy decent hostels constructed for them under the same fund.
This marks yet another diversion from the spirit of the levy as originally framed.
Let’s be clear. This is not just a policy shift. It is a dangerous betrayal of the contributors’ trust.
The Housing Levy was forcefully introduced through law with the promise that ordinary Kenyans would finally own homes, especially low- and middle-income earners long excluded from mortgage systems.
Unconstitutional
Monthly deductions from payslips were justified as an investment into that dream. But instead of homes, contributors are now watching their money erect rental hostels for students, fund markets, build stadia, and now furnish the disciplined services with rental accommodation.
These initiatives offer no ownership, no allocation framework, and no returns to the actual contributors.
These are not affordable homes. These are temporary rental structures that serve the state’s interests, not the citizen’s right to shelter under Article 43 of the Constitution.
Where are the civil servants, teachers, uniformed forces themselves, nurses, clerks, and other hardworking Kenyans whose payslips are bled monthly to fund this scheme? Why the silence?
It is time contributors rose up in defense of their money. This is your sweat. This is your sacrifice. And it is being misused in broad daylight.
Contributors have a right to demand a detailed audit of where their funds have gone. They must ask for transparency in project selection and beneficiary identification.
They must demand a halt to the rebranding of markets, hostels, and stadia as “homes.”
It is morally unjustifiable and economically insulting to force deductions from the pockets of Kenyans only to use those same funds to build structures they neither asked for nor will ever own.
Public money must be used with transparency, accountability, and public participation.
The reallocation of Housing Levy resources to non-residential ventures violates this principle.
How were TVET hostels prioritized? Who consulted contributors on these changes? Where is the publicly accessible master plan that links each deduction to a tangible, ownable home?
This government is turning contributors into spectators of their own disenfranchisement.
And if they don’t speak now, they will watch their money fund political campaigns, government PR, and rental empires owned by the elite.
Affordable housing was meant to uplift lives. It was meant to empower Kenyans through ownership. It was meant to offer dignity and security to the many.
If the government wants to build hostels, let the Ministry of Education finance them. If it wants to build stadia, let it use the Sports Fund.
If it wants markets, let it be through the Trade docket. If it wants to house the uniformed forces, let it be through the Ministry of Interior and Defence.
But let the Housing Fund be used to build homes, not projects that do not benefit contributors. It is time for a national outcry.
Contributors must unite, demand clarity, and reclaim the true intent of the housing dream they’re funding.
The author is a governance and public participation expert
