Parliament committee deals blow to betting companies

(Courtesy)

Betting companies suffered a blow in their bid to lobby the Government to scrap hefty taxes against their operations after a parliamentary committee stood down proposed amendments to the law that sought to grant them a major reprieve.

The National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Sports, Culture and Tourism has shelved the proposed amendments to the law on betting.

The proposed amendments to the Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act had given the firms hope that the hefty taxation measures imposed through the Finance Act 2017, and which led to SportsPesa’s withdrawal from sponsoring sports, will be reversed.

The publishing of the omnibus Statute Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018, that among other things sought to amend the betting law had led SportsPesa to get back to sponsorships in the hope that the taxation would significantly reduce from the 35 per cent, imposed through the Finance Act 2017, to the initial 15 per cent.

But the parliamentary committee, chaired by Machakos Town MP Victor Munyaka, threw spanner into the works after members unanimously opposed the amendments, and instead proposed a “complete mop up of the archaic law, enacted in 1966."

“The amendments shall leave the existing Act vague, hence causing conflict and disharmony among players in the industry.”