650m on Sh119k monthly salary? This calls for lifestyle audit

A headline story in The Standard last Tuesday left many Kenyans in shock.

The story, titled KRA Man’s Sh600m wealth on 100k pay, detailed how an employee of Kenya Revenue Authority, the country’s tax collection agency, had amassed over Sh650 million property over a period of just 18 years and having started off at a basic salary of just about Sh24000 with the current being about Sh120,000.

This, however, should not shock anyone who has been following the overnight millionaire stories that have dominated our media lately.

In a country where a hairdresser wakes up on a fine morning broke and goes to bed with sacksful of a thousand shilling notes running into millions, having carted them from bank counters with pick-up tracks, accumulating just Sh600 million over 18 years is not news.

In a land where a middle-aged beauty who has just returned from exile in Germany, having ran away from pending female circumcision, is paid Sh59million for just showing interest in supplying a government agency, a hardworking tax agent does not warrant headlines for making a few millions in two decades.

But Joseph Chege Gikonyo, the subject of The Standard story, earned his place on the table of the headline hoarders of the country. And he deserved to shock those of us with little understanding or few opportunities to utilise public offices to loot.

The man is said to own property spread across Nairobi, Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale counties valued at Sh355 million, and cash deposits in various banks totaling Sh399 million, none of which is inherited, and has only borrowed a cumulative Sh5 million in his entire life.

From the reports, Mr Gikonyo seems to have abrogated the role of his employer. He was collecting taxes from his employer’s clients and keeping them for himself. Gikonyo made himself a mini-KRA.

Generally, a keener assessment of most workers of the tax collector would reveal a serious discordance between their official pay and their apparent hay.

KRA is arguably one of the most attractive workplaces for school leavers mainly because most of its employees show very little signs of lack. And no one likes lack.

Poverty is detestable and if an employer promises an overnight divorce from it, they most likely will get preference.

But Gikonyo’s case, if true, is a real eye opener for the opportunities the tax collector opens for its workers.

More importantly, however, it is also a wake-up for the Government to begin examining how it loses it’s much needed revenue through the very people it hires to collect it.

That quite substantial amounts of money were set to Mr Gikonyo by cargo clearing agents is an indication that payments due to the Government were being diverted. It could also mean that importers were made twice for clearance, hence making their business costs higher.

And because businessmen are not in the business of making losses, it follows that consumers of the goods so double-charged ended up paying more for the supplies.

And that is how the common mwananchi pays for corruption. Whereas Gikonyo and his family enjoy the fruits of ill-gotten millions, Wanjiku and Anyango are forced to buy that kilo of unga at a price higher than it should. Those who can’t afford that extra shilling to pay for Gikonyo’s million miss out on the unga, the meal, and eventually die of starvation.

In the meantime, the Government does not get money to equip the hospitals in Mtwapa and Bujwang’a villages of Kilifi and Busia counties, respectively, meaning a child who contracts malaria in those villages is likely to die due to lack of medicine.

Now, there are so many Gikonyos in Government agencies that keep denying citizens their dues, and killing them in the process. From swindlers at Kenya Power, siphons at Kenya Pipeline, maize thieves at National Cereals and Produce Board these seemingly junior officers are the main reason Vision 2030 may remain a mirage.

These, together with their senior partners at the boardroom and high political offices, are the main impediments in realising the Big Four Agenda being championed by President Uhuru Kenyatta! For how else would you get affordable houses if importers of building materials are made to pay exorbitant bribes at the port of entry by thieving port workers?

How would a potential manufacturer be encouraged to invest in the country when the cost of electricity if over the roof because fat cats at Kenya Power have to service their appetites for tender kickbacks? Food security is likely to remain elusive as long as the small and not so-small thieves at the agriculture ministry continue with their trade!

 It is stories like this that must give the war against corruption the much needed impetus. Though it is not easy and may take long, no effort should be spared in ensuring that the country achieves corrupt-free status. It also makes a case for continued lifestyle audits to ensure that people live within their means.

This must, however, not be used to punish genuinely hardworking, lowly paid civil servants striving to break the glass ceiling.

Mr Mureu, a teacher, comments on socio-political issues.

The views expressed in this article are not those of Standard Group PLC but solely of the writer.