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{
    "id": 1019634,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1019634/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 348,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Siaya CWR, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Dr.) Christine Ombaka",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1007,
        "legal_name": "Christine Oduor Ombaka",
        "slug": "christine-oduor-ombaka"
    },
    "content": "They collect the money but do not remit it the same day. They can do so the following day. This means that tax collectors collect money but sleep with it in their houses until the next day when they take it back to the counties. That is already a bad thing. Two, tax collectors are underpaid. They are paid little money and yet, they collect so much in the market. Will you not be tempted to steal the collected money? That is what I tend to see. Even tax collectors are put into temptation by collecting huge sums of money in various points and yet their salaries are so low. We need to regularise not only the salaries of those clerks who collect funds, but also put credible people who can collect those funds. Politically, when elections are about to come, a governor who intends to run again announces that there is no tax collection because he wants votes. He or she wants everybody to do their business free of charge in the markets. I do not know whether it is allowed. So, there will be no tax collection. That means services are denied in the counties. Those are some of the things that I have observed and which make this Bill become very practical and necessary. We need to have tax collected on a daily basis and also remitted to the right place at the right time. Also, avoid politics in the collection of it such that some people can benefit from waiving tax when they should not be doing so simply because they want to get back their seats. Finally, the money collected should be put to good use. Why are hospitals not having medicines and yet, patients pay for it? They are taxed but there is no medicine, including the little kind of cheap medicine such as panadol. They do not even have that leave alone paperwork where certain prescriptions can be written on. At a time such as this when there is COVID-19 markets do not even have water tanks. Where has the money gone to? The tax has gone into the pockets of tax collectors. Tax collectors do so because their salaries come late; they are underpaid and are put into such a situation that is easy for them to come up with extra receipts that they use to collect funds or they are put in a situation where there are no receipts at all and they do it off-head by saying: “You pay this. You pay the other”. They do it at will. You pay the tax according to what they want. If you do not, there is a stampede and there are huge fights in the markets. I have seen that and I feel so sorry for the old women. Tax collectors step on their foodstuffs. They step on their tomatoes, onions and fruits to punish those who cannot pay. I think it is good to have some manners when collecting tax from people. Apart from coming up with Bills that will control our standardised revenue collection, we should also have manners on how to collect tax. Those are my thoughts. I support."
}