KRA hoarding the devil’s due

By Timothy Makokha

My good friend who runs a construction firm in the city with sound annual turnover has not been a happy man lately. His sully moods have little to do with collapsing buildings, but the inability to get his tax refunds amounting to millions from Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

He had hoped to get a commitment from the bureaucrats at Times Towers during the recent Taxpayers Week, but the same was not forthcoming, at least not as loud and eloquent as the exhortations to pay taxes. You would think President Kibaki’s directive that KRA speeds up tax refunds counts for anything but he has been here before — entertained to promises that have remained by far empty and meaningless.

As it turns out, my good friend is not alone. An estimated Sh6 billion in tax refunds is said to be collecting mould at KRA. This is a tidy sum by any accounts capable of oiling an economy otherwise threatening to ground to a halt.

But it is not just the delay that is troubling. The refunds attract zero interest regardless of how long they are withheld and yet unpaid taxes attract up to 20 per cent in penalties.

Fast refunds will help business stir the economy, and plug the deficits the tax collector is now staring at. In the face of these deficits, KRA should blame the global crisis but they should also remember to blame themselves for sullying the water in which they swim.

If they will not effect the tax refund on time, they can at least learn to pay interest.

And talking of giving the devil his due, Scorecard welcomes Hon Johnstone Muthama and Peter Kenneth to the community of Kenyans. By meeting their tax obligations, they have earned a right to stake a claim in the future of Kenya. We shall certainly be watching. The church is talking too much

I have been trying to figure out how a church begins to decompose, and whether it will yield manure, ash or simply poisonous scum when it goes full cycle.

Just last year, churches strolled the streets in shame, girded with sackcloth, dissolved in tears, wailing for forgiveness. They had been convicted by the little surviving soul still kicking in them at the time.

Some of us forgave them, but none forgot that in 2007, the churches stood by as we slit each others’ throats. Our pride is soiled. The nation is still bleeding. The wounds are festering and the memories just as bitter.

When early this year, they described the President as ‘moribund’ and the Prime Minister as ‘ineffective’, we all cheered, deluding ourselves about a rebirth of what is the national conscience.

Emboldened by our seal of approval, the church has been on a self-destructive mission, making one mistake too many. When every pessimist in town had hoped that country would not miss the moment to put her house in order through the new constitution, it was the church that threw the spanner in the works, bizarrely asking for minimum reforms.

And now, as we try to digest the import of their nay-saying, they are at it again. Only this time, they have primed their onslaught at the Muslim faith, demanding that the Kadhi Courts be expunged from the new constitution.

How deceitful can the church get?

But it is their incoherence that betrays the Christian clergy as extremist, and ignorant. Their one-line school of thought has hijacked what should otherwise serve as real national debate on constitutionalism to petty squabbles.

Their zealotry has reduced the country’s determination to define a new chapter to a religious contest.

Unknown to them, they are on their own more like touts who insist on playing loud music to passengers yet stubbornly stick to their old time favourite playlist. They are as unrecognisable as their call, with some of them earning their keep and titles from kiosk-size churches in seedy alleys in the city.

This sort of group will not direct national debate because they don’t understand. They are more emotional than thoughtful. They are more hateful than convicted and the earlier they zip up their mouths, the better for all of us – Christians and Muslims alike.

—The writer ([email protected]) is a Sub Editor with The Standard Group