A parliamentary committee has dismissed hundreds of email submissions sent by Kenyans on the Finance Bill 2025, labelling them as spam and disabling official addresses following what it described as a system breach.

In its report to the National Assembly, the Finance and Planning Committee said a large volume of emails received by both the Clerk and the committee’s official email addresses were flagged as spam, with identical content that overwhelmed the system.

“On Saturday, May 31, the National Assembly’s official email address received an overwhelming number of emails that caused an overload on the system, which affected the system’s responsiveness,” the committee chaired by Kuria Kimani said.

The committee said the emails caused the system to crash, leading to the disabling of the official addresses.

“The breach in the established system through interference with the official email addresses caused many emails to be received. The emails, which were mostly spam, contained the same words and content,” read the report.

Among the platforms used to send public submissions was one developed by activist and software developer Rose Njeri.

She had created a portal to help Kenyans access the Bill, understand key proposals, and submit their views to Parliament via email. The website allowed users to either pick identified contentious issues or add their own before sending their responses to the Clerk and the committee.

Njeri’s platform had been praised on social media for simplifying the public participation process. “I call for the withdrawal of this Bill as it is made in bad faith, ignorant of the current economic needs and political will of the people of Kenya,” Njeri said on her website.

She added that the Bill would “entrench the abuse of power by the revenue authorities, a dubious attempt to sneak in tyranny, reinforce poverty, promote marginalisation and at the end of it will deny Kenyans the transformative agenda of Vision 2030.”

Njeri was later arrested and charged with unauthorised access to a computer system, but the court dismissed the charges, ruling that the accusations failed to meet the legal threshold under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act.

Despite the committee terming some email submissions as spam, it eventually dropped several controversial proposals that Njeri and others had opposed.

These included a clause that would have allowed the Kenya Revenue Authority to access personal data and trade secrets for tax enforcement, and a move to reclassify zero-rated goods as VAT-exempt.

The committee found that the proposal on KRA powers violated Article 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy. It also argued that changing the VAT classification of essential goods would harm local industries and make Kenya’s tax regime appear unstable to investors.

“The Committee emphasised that retaining zero-rated status would uphold predictability and stability in the tax system,” the report noted.

In total, the committee said it received 164 emails rejecting the proposed VAT restructuring and excise duty on digital lenders. Six opposed the KRA data access clause, while 18 Kenyans rejected the entire Bill. Only eight supported the Bill in its entirety via email.

The Finance and Planning Committee had earlier been praised for introducing technology-based channels of public participation, including email submissions and a QR code system allowing Kenyans, especially the youth, to access the Bill and give feedback online.