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{
    "id": 1169596,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1169596/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 225,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Cherargei",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13217,
        "legal_name": "Cherarkey K Samson",
        "slug": "cherarkey-k-samson"
    },
    "content": "has approved. I hope the chairperson of the Committee on Delegated Legislation is listening to this keenly. I know they relocated the Port to your county. It will be interesting to see how your people in Kajiado will behave when the Port is returned to Mombasa. What we are not telling Kenyans is the fact that if we raise the public debt ceiling, it means that taxation will go up. Taxation will go up because we need those taxes. Even reducing the VAT on basic commodities from 16 per cent to 8 per cent will not be possible. Madam Temporary Speaker, in terms of businesses, cement for construction was Kshs550 a few years ago. It is now approaching Kshs1,000. The cost of steel and other building materials has also risen. The other day, Pwani Oil was closing shop. The sad reality is that the Competition Authority of Kenya and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) are sleeping on their job. Do you know why KRA is sleeping? It is because their business is to just close you down, when they find out that you are not paying your taxes. They do not stop to think that they will not get their revenue for the next financial year, if your business is closed down. Madam Temporary Speaker, if you remember, the President of Tanzania, Hon. Samia Suluhu Hassan, told Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) in one of the forums that, if you close a business, it means that their will be no revenue. As we talk today, KRA has closed down Keroche Breweries in Nakuru County. KRA must come up with friendly policies, if we want to improve, in terms of collecting taxes. Kenya Revenue Authority should stop behaving like they are dealing with criminals. Madam Temporary Speaker, you are a senior in our practice and you know that you do not treat taxation matters as criminal. There is a way to handle it as opposed to criminal. If somebody is not paying taxes, you need to encourage them through civic education on why it is important to pay taxes. Why are many Kenyans doing tax evasion? It looks like KRA is not friendly to ensure that we collect more revenue to offset public debt. That is why we need to study the late President Mwai Kibaki. When he came to office in 2002, the revenue that was being collected in Kenya was approximately Kshs200 billion. By the time he left office in 2013, his government was collecting around Kshs1 trillion shillings. We need to borrow a leaf from the late President Mwai Kibaki’s government, even as taxation goes up. We need to be honest to Kenyans. When we raise the public debt ceiling to Kshs10 trillion, everything will go high, including taxation and the cost of living. I do not mean that presidential candidate called Wajackoyah who wants to smoke something that makes one high. Madam Temporary Speaker, my third point is on the Public Private Partnership (PPP). I agree with this one. We need to encourage counties to work on the PPP Act. It has been signed into law. We need to use this PPP Act to finance some of these mega projects. I am disappointed that they have used a wrong example. When this Nairobi Expressway was conceived during the late President Kibaki’s Government, we were told that it was around Kshs30 billion. Are you aware that it is now going to Kshs81 billion?"
}