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{
    "id": 1511303,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1511303/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 379,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "there, if you put VAT on the air ticket in Nairobi, I will opt to process my ticket online and charge my Arusha office. We will be driving away employment in our country. So, the Committee has diligently with a lot of foresight removed VAT on air tickets. Many people are selling tiles along our major roads. Everywhere people know housing schemes or new settlement areas are coming up. In Kitengela, Kiambu Road or Gikambura- Mutarakwa Road you will see very many small hardware shops having cropped up and selling tiles. The proposal to impose a 35 per cent excise duty on tiles or Ksh300 per kilo would mean for a 25kg box of tiles the price would go up by Ksh7,500. The Committee has proposed to remove this and instead have 5 per cent excise duty or Ksh200 per kilo, whichever is higher. The Chairman will speak to this when moving his amendments tomorrow. The Committee had proposed to remove excise duty on coal which is a raw material used in cement production. We do not want our cement production cost to go up. We should not remove the entire tax because of issues to do with global warming, climate change and carbon emissions. Coal is one of the culprits of carbon emissions. To discourage this, we are in discussions with the Chairman and will find a compromise instead of removing the entire tax but reduce it. We will reach an agreement as we move on. The Committee has also proposed taxation on alcohol to deal with the heavy question of illicit drinks and alcohol in our country. We tax alcohol in terms of volume and not the alcohol content. We encouraged people to move away from beer to cheap hard liquor which tends to be very harmful to people's health. People buy tuquarter and tunusu but the alcohol content of this liquor is at a high of 70 to 80 per cent. Whereas the beer that some people enjoy… Hon. Temporary Speaker, I can only tell you the milk content in my tea, but I know many beers are at the rate of 4 to 4.5 per cent. I can see Hon. Oundo is smiling, I do not know whether he is disagreeing with the alcohol content in beer. I have conceded, I do not know the alcohol content because I am not a partaker. The Committee is proposing to tax the alcohol content in all alcoholic drinks. If a drink has 40 per cent alcohol content, the tax will be higher than ordinary beer or another alcoholic drink with a 2 or 3 per cent alcohol content. This will generate more income and discourage people from consuming illicit brews with a high level of alcohol content which in many instances is unchecked. On the manufacturers being asked to pay withholding tax within 24 hours, the Committee is proposing they pay within the first five business working days after the end of the month. This will not only allow the manufacturers to have a little bit more of working capital, but also increase the time required to remit this withholding tax. This will be a good thing for manufacturers because, as I mentioned, they also have a little bit more time to utilise the resources that they have withheld as part of their working capital, at no cost. But after the five working days, they will be levied a penalty and interest if they do not pay. One of the other issues that many people spoke about when this Bill was published – especially those who appeared for public participation across the counties where the Chairman and the Vice-chairman led their teams in the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning Committee – was the VAT levy on our game parks and game reserves fees. I remember watching on television one of the two presenters telling the Committee that the animals that we go to see at Maasai Mara Game Reserve are the same ones that migrate to Serengeti. I am glad that the Committee agreed with them. The lion in the Mara is the same one in Serengeti. Therefore, if you levy VAT on park fees in Maasai Mara, tourists will move away from there and opt to book and go to Serengeti across the River Mara. The wildebeest migration is movement of those wildebeest from Serengeti to the Mara and vice versa . It is the same animals. So if our neighbour countries in the region are not levying VAT on park fees we should do the same. This levy will make our parks more expensive than those of our neighbours. So that we do not discourage people from going to our neighbouring countries, we"
}