Kenya must end the regulatory delay blocking tax relief for parents and guardians caring for persons with severe disabilities

This is not a minor administrative inconvenience. For families providing full-time or near-full-time care to children and adults with profound support needs, every month of delay has a real cost: therapy, medication, transport, assistive devices, specialist consultations, special education, home modifications, paid caregiving, lost working hours and, in many households, the sacrifice of one parent’s earning capacity altogether.

The Kenyan State recognised that burden and enacted relief. It cannot then allow the benefit to remain trapped between an Act of Parliament and an unsigned or ungazetted set of regulations. A government that can collect tax immediately must also be capable of implementing tax relief promptly when Parliament has deliberately provided it.

The legal position is clear: Parliament created the relief

The Persons with Disabilities Act, No. 4 of 2025, was assented to on 8 May 2025, published on 13 May 2025 and commenced on 27 May 2025. It replaced the 2003 Act and expressly created a new statutory framework for disability rights, incentives and reliefs.

Section 57(1) is the key provision. It authorises the Cabinet Secretary responsible for finance, upon application, to grant an income-tax exemption to a parent or guardian of a person certified with severe disability and incapable of catering for their basic needs, where that person is in the parent’s or guardian’s care and custody. The amount is to be prescribed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Most importantly, section 57(3) does not merely offer a polite suggestion. It states that the Cabinet Secretary “shall make regulations” for the proper implementation of the section. In statutory drafting, “shall” ordinarily signals a mandatory duty unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. The benefit cannot be meaningfully accessed until the machinery of implementation exists: the prescribed amount, application forms, certification standards, evidence of care and custody, decision timelines, renewal rules, review or appeal mechanisms, and coordination among Treasury, NCPWD and KRA.

Section 56(7) reinforces the point by directing the Cabinet Secretary responsible for finance, in consultation with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, to make regulations to give effect to the broader exemption provisions. The statute therefore anticipates active regulation and inter-agency coordination, not indefinite administrative silence.

What the official record shows as at 2 August 2026

A review of Kenya Law’s current legislation database, the Kenya Revenue Authority’s public guidance and NCPWD’s official materials shows an uncomfortable implementation gap. The old Persons with Disabilities (Income Tax Deductions and Exemptions) Order, Legal Notice No. 36 of 2010, remains the latest readily identifiable income-tax exemption instrument. Under section 89 of the 2025 Act, existing regulations can continue in force during the transition.

But the 2010 Order was designed for tax exemption claimed by the person with disability. It does not create the new parent-or-guardian relief introduced by section 57 of the 2025 Act. KRA’s current public guidance still explains the existing exemption for a registered person with disability on the first KSh 150,000 of monthly income, relying on the old 2003 Act and the 2010 Order. That guidance does not set out a functioning parent/guardian application pathway under the 2025 Act.

This distinction matters. It would be inaccurate to say that all disability tax exemptions have stopped: the pre-existing exemption system for qualifying persons with disabilities continues. The problem is narrower but extremely serious: the new statutory relief for qualifying parents and guardians appears not to have been operationalised through the regulations expressly contemplated by section 57.

No official source reviewed for this article showed a gazetted instrument prescribing the amount and procedure for the section 57 parent/guardian income-tax exemption. If such regulations have in fact been made, the responsible institutions should publish them immediately, update their websites and give the public a clear application pathway. If they have not been made, the delay must end.

Who carries responsibility?

Responsibility is shared, but the Act allows us to identify the principal legal roles. First, the Persons with Disabilities Act defines the unqualified term “Cabinet Secretary” as the Cabinet Secretary responsible for matters relating to persons with disabilities. On the face of that definition, section 57(3) — which says “The Cabinet Secretary shall make regulations” — points to the Cabinet Secretary responsible for disability matters. As at August 2026, that portfolio sits in the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection under Dr Alfred Mutua. That makes his ministry a central duty-bearer for the missing implementation regulations.

The National Treasury is equally central to the tax-relief leg. As at August 2026, the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury and Economic Planning is FCPA John Mbadi Ng’ongo. Section 57(1) places the power to grant the income-tax exemption with the Cabinet Secretary responsible for finance. A tax exemption cannot be implemented credibly without Treasury determining the fiscal design, coordinating the prescribed amount and working with KRA on administration. Treasury therefore cannot dismiss the matter as a social-protection issue. The public is entitled to know what Treasury has done, what remains outstanding and the date on which qualifying parents and guardians will be able to apply.

The National Council for Persons with Disabilities also cannot be a spectator. The 2025 Act gives NCPWD broad functions to advise on disability policy and legal frameworks, eliminate discrimination, promote equal opportunities, provide public education and enforce the Act’s objectives. The Council is also the institution with the disability-registration and technical expertise required to make any workable tax-relief process credible. Its current Executive Director is Dr Michael Munene. NCPWD should publicly state what it has advised the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the National Treasury, what draft regulations it has participated in, what implementation obstacles remain, and the timetable it is demanding from government.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection has an additional responsibility under section 57(2), which provides for long-term social assistance to an indigent parent or guardian who has full custody and care of a person with severe disability who cannot meet basic needs. That is distinct from the tax exemption, but it is part of the same legislative promise to families carrying extraordinary care responsibilities. Dr Mutua’s ministry should therefore account for both the regulation-making status under section 57(3) and the implementation of the social-assistance limb under section 57(2).

KRA is principally the tax administrator, not the body Parliament charged with prescribing the section 57 relief. It should not be made the scapegoat for a regulatory framework that the responsible ministries have not yet brought into legal effect. Nevertheless, KRA must be ready to update its systems, forms, employer guidance and iTax processes immediately once the regulations are gazetted. Its public pages should also be updated to reflect the 2025 Act rather than continuing to present the repealed 2003 Act as the principal statutory basis.

This is more than a policy failure: it engages constitutional duties

The Constitution does not permit public institutions to treat vulnerable families as an afterthought. Article 10 binds State organs and public officers to the rule of law, human dignity, equity, social justice, inclusiveness, equality, human rights, non-discrimination, protection of the marginalised, good governance, transparency and accountability. Leaving a statutory relief unusable for an extended period sits uneasily with those obligations.

Article 21(1) makes it a fundamental duty of the State and every State organ to observe, respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights and fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights. Article 21(3) goes further: all State organs and public officers have a duty to address the needs of vulnerable groups, expressly including persons with disabilities and children. Parliament has already enacted a specific measure to address one of those needs. Administrative inaction should not be allowed to neutralise it.

Article 27 guarantees equality before the law, equal protection and equal benefit of the law, and prohibits discrimination on the ground of disability. It also authorises affirmative-action measures designed to redress disadvantage. Section 57 is precisely the kind of targeted measure contemplated by an equality framework: it recognises that a household carrying severe disability-related care costs is not situated like an ordinary household. Equality is not achieved by pretending unequal burdens are equal.

Article 28 protects inherent human dignity. Dignity is not an abstract slogan. A legal system that acknowledges the extraordinary costs of care but then allows the promised relief to remain inaccessible risks turning families into supplicants for what Parliament has already recognised as legitimate support.

Article 43 protects the right to social security, and Article 43(3) requires the State to provide appropriate social security to persons unable to support themselves and their dependants. That provision is particularly relevant to the social-assistance limb of section 57. For children with disabilities, Article 53 also guarantees basic nutrition, shelter and healthcare and declares the child’s best interests paramount in every matter concerning the child.

Article 47 guarantees administrative action that is expeditious, efficient, lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair. A prolonged failure to complete a mandatory regulatory process can therefore raise serious questions of administrative law, especially where the delay frustrates a benefit Parliament has enacted. Whether a particular delay is unlawful is ultimately a question a court can determine on evidence, but the constitutional standard is clear: public administration must be timely and effective.

Is the Cabinet Secretary “breaking the law”? The legally careful answer

It is important to be forceful without being careless. The Act imposes a statutory duty to make implementing regulations, and the absence of an operational section 57 framework more than a year after commencement raises a serious prima facie question of statutory non-compliance and unreasonable administrative delay. Because “Cabinet Secretary” is a defined term in the Act, the clearest textual reading of section 57(3) places the regulation-making duty on the Cabinet Secretary responsible for disability matters, while section 57(1) places the tax-exemption decision with the finance Cabinet Secretary. If government takes a different interpretation of that drafting, it should say so publicly; ambiguity cannot justify paralysis. The delay also engages Articles 10, 21, 27, 43 and 47 of the Constitution.

However, no court decision identified in the sources reviewed for this article has declared Alfred Mutua, John Mbadi, NCPWD or any named official personally guilty of unlawfulness in relation to section 57. It would therefore be irresponsible to invent a judicial finding that does not exist. The correct public-interest position is stronger than exaggeration: the law created duties; qualifying families still lack a clear operational pathway; the responsible institutions must account for the delay, resolve any inter-ministerial drafting issue and complete the regulations without further excuse.

The human cost of bureaucratic delay

A parent caring for a person with severe disability does not experience government delay as a paragraph in the Gazette. The delay arrives as another transport bill to a specialist clinic. Another therapy session paid out of pocket. Another school support fee. Another day missed from work. Another caregiver who must be paid. Another assistive device postponed. Another emergency in a household whose income has already been stretched by care responsibilities that may continue for a lifetime.

Some parents cannot take ordinary full-time jobs because the person in their care requires constant supervision. Others structure every working day around hospital appointments, therapy, feeding, mobility support, communication support and the unpredictable demands that accompany severe disability. Many of these families are not asking the government to make them rich. They are asking the State to implement a modest fiscal recognition that Parliament has already approved.

A tax exemption does not erase the burden. It simply allows a qualifying parent or guardian to keep a little more of their own income to meet extraordinary care costs. That is why delaying the regulations is so hard to defend morally: the State continues to collect PAYE and other taxes with precision while the relief side of the law remains uncertain.

Government must answer these questions publicly

• Has the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection prepared the regulations required by section 57(3), and if so, on what date were they drafted?
• Have NCPWD, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the National Treasury jointly agreed the technical criteria, certification process and proposed application pathway?
• What amount of income will be exempt for a qualifying parent or guardian, who is legally responsible for prescribing it, and what is the fiscal basis for that amount?
• When will the draft regulations be subjected to the legally required regulatory process and public participation, where applicable, and when will they be gazetted?
• What interim administrative protection, if any, is available to families who would have qualified from the date the Act commenced?
• Will Treasury and KRA provide a mechanism for backdated relief or refunds once the framework becomes operational, where the law permits?
• What is the implementation status of the long-term social-assistance benefit contemplated by section 57(2)?

Kenyans should pile on lawful, relentless civic pressure

This issue deserves national attention precisely because disability policy is too often treated as a niche concern affecting “other people.” It is not. Disability can enter any family through birth, illness, accident or age. A society is judged by whether its laws protect people when their need is greatest, not merely by how progressive those laws sound on paper.

Parents’ associations, organisations of and for persons with disabilities, tax professionals, lawyers, employers, trade unions, journalists, religious organisations and ordinary citizens should demand a dated implementation plan from the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, the National Treasury and NCPWD. Parliament should summon the responsible Cabinet Secretaries and require a status report on section 57. Senators and Members of the National Assembly should ask formal questions and insist on publication of the draft regulations. Civil-society organisations should consider lawful public-interest litigation if administrative inaction continues to defeat the statute.

The pressure must remain peaceful, evidence-based and constitutional: letters, petitions, parliamentary questions, Access to Information requests, media scrutiny, stakeholder memoranda, public forums and, where necessary, court proceedings. The objective is not to abuse public officials. It is to compel public institutions to do the job the law has already assigned to them.

The demand is simple: implement the law now

To CS Alfred Mutua and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection: publish the status of the section 57(3) regulations and give the country a firm gazettement timetable. The Act’s definition of “Cabinet Secretary” makes your ministry central to that regulation-making duty. If a draft exists, disclose its status and complete the process. If it does not, explain why a mandatory disability-relief provision has been allowed to sit for more than a year after commencement.

To CS John Mbadi and the National Treasury: publish Treasury’s implementation position on section 57(1), including the proposed tax-relief design, the prescribed amount and the work done with KRA to make the benefit administratively usable. Treasury cannot continue collecting tax efficiently while leaving Parliament’s relief measure without a workable fiscal pathway.

To NCPWD and Dr Michael Munene: use the Council’s statutory mandate visibly. Tell families what has been done, what remains undone, what technical advice the Council has given both ministries and what deadline it is pressing government to meet. The Council exists to protect and advance disability rights, not merely to register persons with disabilities and issue statements after harm has occurred.

To the Social Protection administration: account separately for the section 57(2) long-term social-assistance promise to indigent caregivers. A law that recognises lifetime care responsibilities must be matched by administrative machinery and budgetary seriousness.

And to Parliament: your work does not end when the President signs a Bill. Oversight means ensuring that delegated legislation is made and that rights granted in statutes are actually usable. Parliament should demand a deadline and return to the issue until the regulations are in force.

Kenya does not need another beautiful disability law gathering dust while families carry the burden alone. The country already debated the policy. Parliament passed it. The President assented to it. The Act commenced. What remains is implementation — and implementation is not charity. It is the rule of law.

Legal note

This article is public-interest commentary, not legal advice. It distinguishes between statutory duties and a formal judicial finding of illegality. The assertion that the section 57 parent/guardian relief is not yet operational is based on a review of official sources available as at 2 August 2026. If a newer gazetted regulation exists but is not reflected in the sources reviewed, the responsible institutions should publish and publicise it immediately.

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