The closure of container depots in Mombasa is pure politics

We read politics in the move by KRA and KPA to close down Joho family businesses.

Last week’s move by Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) to order the closure of two major container depots in Mombasa associated with governor Ali Hassan Joho’s family due to tax evasion probe smacks of ‘politics of revenge’.

Portside and Auto port container freight stations were ostensibly closed amid reports linking them to the smuggling of multi-million-shilling goods at the Mombasa port.

KRA has linked the closure of Portside and Auto port container depots to tax evasion probe, saying licenses for companies that breach customs law will be suspended.

However, it would not be lost to keen observers that the audacious move came barely a week after the President concluded his month long working tour of Mombasa in which he had numerous run-ins with the ODM governor who complained publicly that the President had snubbed him.

The move is nothing more than a ‘capricious and fickle attempt’ by the jubilee administration to cripple its opponents economically and force them to sing their tunes ahead of the crucial 2017 polls.

Supporters of the flamboyant governor who is the ODM deputy party leader will remain convinced that the president ordered the shutdown of the two container freight stations to ‘get back at the governor for embarrassing him during his ‘Mombasa sojourn’.

It’s an open secret that the governor stood up against the bullying tactics of the national government led by none other than to the president and Nairobi senator Mike Sonko during their coast tour and it’s not surprising that he had to hit back and close his business interest to get back at him.

This is not about the governor and his businesses but about the return of strong arm politics, intimidation and blackmail to fight the Opposition using regulatory institutions which must be resisted at all cost.

There is something almost eerie about the similarities of what Jubilee is now doing to its political opponents to what KANU did to ‘starve’ its opponents into submission in the 70s and 80s.

The message that this latest move sends to opposition county officials is that ‘being on the wrong side’ of the government has consequences.

As right thinking citizens we must be vigilant to the attempts by jubilee administration to take the country back to the dark old days of KANU.