Top KRA officials to lose contracts

Reforms at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) will see five senior managers axed after the taxman declined to renew their contracts.

The new management at Times Tower led by James Mburu insists that it will enforce a performance accountability plan that will send away the managers for failing to meet targets. 

Sources told Saturday Standard that the managers have been informed they will not get a renewal.

In 2014, KRA put senior staff on three-year contracts renewable subject to performance. 

To date no contract has failed to be renewed although the authority has consistently struggled to meet its targets.

KRA partly attributes the persistent underperformance on failure to enforce accountability among the staff who have continued to have their contracts renewed despite not meeting revenue targets.

Insiders said the process of evaluating the performance of all senior staff is currently in progress.

Those whose performance is not satisfactory but their tenures are not coming to an end may either have their contracts terminated or be put on performance improvement plans of between one and six months.

In the last one year KRA has recruited six new commissioners and the Commissioner General as the contracts of previous holders ended. 

The taxman has also in recent past intensified fight against corruption among staff, a vice which has also undermined achievement of revenue targets.

In May, KRA working with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations took to court 80 employees for receiving bribes and abating tax evasion in collusion with individual and corporate taxpayers. 

Investigated evaders

The authority has also investigated and recommended for prosecution over 300 individuals in the last six months for various tax evasion offences.

The move comes at a time KRA is on the spot for failing to meet its collection targets. And to address the issue, the authority now has a full-fledged unit with intelligence officers sniffing through company accounts and targeting those who have failed to meet their tax obligations.