State: The master collector but accountability rookie

Kenya’s tax system has become remarkably efficient—so much so that most citizens barely notice it.

Pay As You Earn (PAYE) is deducted before salaries are paid, while Value Added Tax (VAT) is built into nearly every purchase.

Excise duty is folded into fuel, airtime, transport, and everyday consumption. Customs collection is digitised, with compliance enforced at source, making evasion harder than ever.

In simple terms, the State has mastered the art of taking revenue quickly, predictably, and almost unavoidably.

But the moment that money enters the public system, visibility gradually disappears. Budgets are published; audits are tabled, though late for any reasonable action; and Parliament is meant to provide oversight, which it doesn't – it is just a sitting to collect allowances.

Yet the ordinary taxpayer still struggles to see a clear roadmap connecting what is collected and what is delivered.

Ordinarily, in a working system, the best defender of public funds would be Parliament, but in our case, it is the mutilator.

In the corporate world, such a model would be unacceptable. Listed companies must disclose revenues, costs, margins, liabilities, and future outlooks in painstaking detail.

Shareholders—who invest voluntarily—expect continuous transparency and punish opacity by withdrawing capital. In that environment, cash flow is never judged by collection alone.

It is judged by accountability, performance, and measurable results.

The government, on the other hand, strategically operates by a different standard. Taxpayers finance the entire machinery of the State, yet they do not enjoy anything close to equivalent information rights.

They are compulsory investors, not voluntary contributors, but they carry the full financial burden all the same.

In effect, they are forced shareholders in a national enterprise that never has to explain itself with the precision private institutions demand. Over time, that is no longer just a technical weakness. It becomes a crisis of trust.

This is why the debate must move beyond government itself. Across Kenya, taxes, living costs, and public trust are now deeply intertwined—but the institutions that represent the productive economy have not matched that urgency with enough pressure for fiscal clarity.

The Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Federation of Kenyan Employers, and Central Organisation of Trade Unions occupy a strategic space between capital, labour, and national productivity.

They already speak on wages, taxes, competitiveness, and the business climate. The obvious next question is: why are they not speaking just as consistently and forcefully about how compulsory public contributions are used?

Do they know they have the power that can stifle the whole government’s operations? Just imagine if all employers decide not to remit taxes.

This could be more catastrophic than the Gen Z demonstration or the recently failed Matatu strike.

If employers can demand efficiency in production, and workers can demand fairness in wages, then both should be able to demand transparency in the use of public money.

In more mature economies, business associations, labour bodies, and independent fiscal watchdogs do not treat this as a political hobbyhorse; they treat it as an economic necessity.

Kenyans should do the same. A modern economy cannot focus only on how much tax is charged. It must also insist on whether public spending is efficient, traceable, and producing measurable outcomes.

The real issue, then, is not whether Kenya can collect taxes. It can, and it does so with impressive precision.

The real issue is whether the country’s economic institutions, civic voices, and oversight culture are willing to demand the same precision in accountability.

In any system where contribution is mandatory, accountability cannot be treated as optional. If the State can perfect collection, then the public has every right to demand equally perfected disclosure.

- The writer is the founder and CEO of Marathon Debt Recovery Ltd, a credit management specialist, and a certified public accountant