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{
    "id": 577830,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/577830/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 280,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Ms.) Gathecha",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 652,
        "legal_name": "Annah Nyokabi Gathecha",
        "slug": "annah-nyokabi-gathecha"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this Bill. The tax regime in this country has been quite punitive and unclear. It has been used to mainly harass a number of businesses instead of growing the businesses. This Bill aims to put in place practices for taxation to ensure that it is clear. Hopefully, the Commissioner-General will be somebody working towards ensuring the tax regime in place and the taxes that will be charged will encourage investment in terms of industrialisation. The purpose of this Bill is to keep the procedure of administering excise tax in tune with international best practices that currently exist around the world. This harmonisation will assist Kenya to be one of those main participants in regional integration. It will put in line investments within this country so that we do not have those who are trying to evade taxes by importing goods, taking them to other countries and ensuring that raw materials are not exported to other countries and then we end up importing a lot of those goods. It will help encourage industrialisation and growth of industries, which will also create employment in this country. This will be a good thing for our country. The aspect of the compensation for harmful effects caused by production, supply, consumption and use of goods and services is one that I find helpful. Members of Parliament in the Central region have fought so hard to ensure that at least the youth of this country and of particular counties are saved from the harmful effects of the illicit brews and from the greedy works of those who are only interested in adding harmful additives into the alcohol that they currently sell. This is done to ensure that these youth will become productive members of this society. People sell illicit brews and second generation drinks that have tremendous harm to the revenue of this country because the youth had been rendered ineffective. They are individuals who engage in crime just to get the Kshs50 to ensure that they got a hit which made them unproductive. I am not even sure that some of those taxes are punitive enough. When you take a look at the impact of illicit brews in the country, it causes 94 deaths a year. In the county that I represent, one death a year is too much for this country. I also oppose what the Member had mentioned about some of the taxes that have been involved. If you were to take a look at some of the revenue streams--- We are not opposing industrialisation and home grown industries in this country. However, we cannot allow revenue streams to be made from products that are endangering or killing the youth of this country. When we say that the tax regime that was imposed on Keroche Industries was too much, ethanol should The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}