Stop blaming KRA employees

I was touched by Mr. Rotich's comments that the current financial crisis experienced by the Kenya Government is mainly as a result of poor tax collection mechanisms by KRA coupled by actions of some of its rogue employees. I totally disagree with his remarks together with those of Mr. Chegeh (a serial critic of KRA) on the following well researched grounds;

Kra employees have in the past always surpassed their revenue targets. These are the same employees that Mr, Rotich has vehemently criticized without due regard of their past performance record. Such criticisms coming from a senior Government official merely reflects mistrust he bestows to the entire Kra fraternity, which may not resolve the current problem facing our economy. The so called rogue employees should be dealt with on a case to case basis as it been the tradition in the past as we strive to discover the main causes of the Kenya financial crises.

The introduction of I-tax system came with several challenges. One of these challenges is the fact that most taxes that are paid through various commercial banks, end up unaccounted for. These taxes are never reflected in the taxpayers' accounts with KRA, which renders them punished for offenses they have not committed. On the other hand, these funds may find their way into these banks suspense accounts for the Government never to receive them. This situation has been worsened by the fact that, unlike Simba system in Customs and Excise services, I-tax does not disclose the details of the bank and the amount that has been deposited in each particular moment.

The complexity of the operation associated with I -tax system has rendered many taxpayers to migrate turnover tax (TOT) regardless of their revenue threshold. Many will agree with me that I-tax system is not complex to operate and also very unfriendly to users. Taxman waste a lot of man hours training taxpayers on the operation of this dreaded tax system.

The creation of the County Governments are also a major cause of revenue loss to the Central Government. The manner in which contracts are awarded and their valuations are issues that require urgent measures. Also those who are awarded the contracts are people who hardly pay taxes, unlike in the previous regime where only the eligible persons were awarded contracts.

The other temporary contributor to the current financial crisis in the country is non availability of PAYE from teachers’ salaries. Teachers are   major contributors to the Government coffer. The fact that they have not been paid their salaries for some months simply means no taxes have been remitted from them. This is a major blow to the revenue collection organ of the Government.

In view of the above facts, it is evident that Mr. Rotich has his role to play in ensuring that much is done to counter some of problems that have direct impact in the taxes collections as I cited above. I believe there many other factors that can be addressed professionally in order to put our economy in the right track.