MPs pile pressure for submission of Finance Bill

By ALEX NDEGWA

MPs have stepped up pressure on Government over the controversial Financial Bill ahead of Tuesday reopening of Parliament.

Parliament’s Budget Committee demanded that the Treasury submits the Finance Bill for approval next week failure to which it should "arrange to refund taxpayers taxes so far illegally collected".

The Bill has been pending since last June.

Committee Chairman Elias Mbau said the Bill, which the Executive has withdrawn three times to shield banks from an amendment seeking to cap interest rates, is long overdue.

The MPs argue Parliament’s Permission to allow Treasury to collect new taxes expired on December 31, last year pending enactment of the Bill that details tax changes.

Hence, they say, all additional taxes collected since then are illegal. Gwasi MP John Mbadi claimed experts estimate this amount at Sh5 billion.

Illegal taxes

"The continued collection of illegal taxes by the Government smacks of great indiscipline on the part of the Treasury and is a bad practice since all revenue should be collected within the law," Mbau told a news conference at Parliament Buildings Thursday.

The committee gave a similar deadline for submission of the supplementary Budget, alleging to a scheme by the Government to have the House rubberstamp the expenditure spent outside the two months stipulated in the Constitution.

And Mbau explained the committee would also seek an extension of time to review the Budget Policy Statement to uphold Parliament’s role in the planning of this year’s Budget.

"The committee is aware that Treasury would wish to circumvent the duty of Parliament to inform and contribute to the budget process through the Budget Policy Statement by ensuring that they didn’t submit the policy paper until Parliament went on recess," Mbau said.

Mbau claimed the Executive deliberately failed to submit the Budget Policy Statement, whose statutory deadline for presentation to Parliament lapsed on March 21, to take advantage of the recess.

The committee is supposed to consult each departmental committee and table not later than April 15 the report on the statement detailing the broad strategic macroeconomic issues that will be the basis of the Budget.