We have engendered society by making graft part of who we are

The intrigues and shenanigans in Kenya never cease to amaze! For decades, Kenyans would feel secretly lucky that we were not Nigerians with their in-your-face corruption and looting. The last few years have changed that. Today, there are few countries as messy, convoluted, corrupt and seemingly intractable.

We should never imagine that the rest of the world is unaware of our status! Social media show us up every day, making it difficult to hold our heads high when we meet colleagues from other countries. For as soon as Kenya is mentioned, the litany of our shenanigans comes sprawling out.

We are, for instance, a country where electronic safeguards for elections are weapons for vote stealing, as the last two elections showed. Only Azerbaijan beat us, with election results published before voting in 2013! We spend more than almost any other country on elections per capita, and we still mess up. Crazy thing is that we are now heading, or so we are told, to a referendum next year, with the same election body that has never complied with the court order to open its servers!

Or take taxation. We are told that everyone must pay their share of taxes, even as they are increasing each year. There is PAYE, Housing Levy, excise tax, VAT, breathing and survival taxes all thrown in, making us one of the most highly taxed people in the world. And all this because some people took out secret and ill-advised loans from China.

For the SGR, for instance, it is like taking a loan to buy 100 buses to generate proceeds to pay back the loan and make some profit. But instead, we use that same amount to buy 25 buses, and expect that they will generate the same income that 100 buses would have done!

And as this is going on, we learn that some of the richest families in the country are getting an exemption from stamp duty in the merger between CBA and NIC banks estimated at about Sh350 million. Today, anything official involving CBA bank always raises the strong stinky smell of conflict of interest, rendering hollow the screaming demands to pay taxes. For if those with power are exempted from paying taxes--which wouldn’t dent their wealth--why should the rest of us pay taxes?

At the same time, entrepreneurs in the alcohol industry are suddenly being arrested and charged with tax evasion. It is interesting that these are indigenous investors in an industry dominated by multinationals, which tilts the market strongly in favour of the multinationals.

Now, these multinationals do not appear to be subject to any investigation on tax evasion, although multinationals are known as the masters of transfer pricing and other illicit financial flows from Africa that could be as much as $50 billion a year, according to the High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa. But in Kenya, some seem to believe that westerners are squeaky clean, despite all the contrary evidence!  

One of my friends remarked that jailing those accused of tax evasion is like killing the golden goose for the meat when it could be laying golden eggs for decades. If indeed there has been tax evasion, shouldn’t KRA’s interest be to ensure that the taxes are paid—even if over some years—by maintaining the companies as going concerns, rather than actions that could lead to bankruptcy—and job losses--especially when the amounts mentioned seem absurd given our economic reality?

Or is this deeper than tax evasion and is the stage being set for yet another monopoly like the one in the dairy industry which is now causing distress to milk producers?

And then there is the census “manenos” which morphed from being an exercise in enumerating people to an exercise in data collection, perhaps to make up for the likely failures of Huduma Namba registration, after the courts ruled it voluntary. Asking us for the number of chickens we have, whether we drive cars or take matatus, and for our ID and/or passport numbers is not only intrusive, a violation of our right to privacy, but also unconstitutional. And which regimes, but illegitimate and brutal ones, beat up people and force closure of businesses so that they can be counted?

If someone does not want to be counted, that is their problem, unless of course, you want the numbers, income status and other details for reasons beyond enumeration, such as planning on how to tax us more or for “business” purposes a Huduma Namba. In fact, the only known reason, at present, for Huduma Namba, is to enable the Stawi mobile phone loan scheme--led by CBA--raising many questions about the use of the state to enrich private individuals.

There are many more issues making us the laughing stock of the world, including the recent one where the state reports exports of 200,000 barrels of oil while the exporter reports 240,000 barrels!

The saddest thing is we have now engendered a society with new “values”, including making corruption part of who and what we are.

- The writer is former KNCHR chair. [email protected]