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{
    "id": 685300,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/685300/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 150,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Tonui",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1242,
        "legal_name": "Ronald Kiprotich Tonui",
        "slug": "ronald-kiprotich-tonui"
    },
    "content": "President will listen more to Wanjiku and less to the banks who are exploiters and who make abnormal profits of Kshs20 billion while the economy is struggling. I am not happy about some provisions of the Bill. It does not talk about the Presidential directive on taxes in the tea sub-sector. I was happy when the President said that all taxes in the tea sector will be removed. He wants to encourage the tea sub-sector as it is one of the major sources of foreign exchange earnings. We need to invest in it and reduce taxation. During the Committee of the whole House, we need to introduce an amendment to this Bill to ensure that taxation in the tea sector is removed. I can see the Chairman of the Committee is, indeed, concentrating. I am happy because he also comes from a tea-growing area. I know this will be taken care of so that farmers can get some tax relief. I am also happy that we want to amend the KDI Act to ensure that those who play a key role in terms of being members or directors of the boards of management of banks have no conflict of interest. We cannot have directors of banks sitting in the Board of Management of the KDIC If they are the ones running the show, then, the oversight role expected of them under the KDI Act will not be executed. They are the people who cause banks to collapse by looting funds belonging to small depositors. That conflict of interest is being taken care of by this Bill. That makes me a happy man. There is also the issue of tax exemption on overtime payments. I believe this is a welcome move to encourage our people to work beyond the stipulated time. My only worry is those people who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the teaching profession and are never paid for their overtime. There should be overtime allowance, especially in boarding schools. We need to introduce it so that teachers can also enjoy tax exemptions on overtime payment. The amendment to the Special Economic Zones Act is welcome because it is going to create jobs for our youth. We need to be export- oriented in our economy, so that we create employment. When we exempt SEZs from certain taxes, it is a welcome idea which we need to encourage. I believe the proposal to cap Excise Duty at a flat rate of 20 per cent of the import value is not a good provision, especially for the public transport. The traffic jams we face on our roads in this city, Mombasa and other major cities are because of many small vehicles. We need to encourage investment in public transport. We need to encourage the use of buses. When you adjust Excise Duty to 20 per cent, school buses will become expensive. I have been purchasing buses for schools, but when we impose an Excise Duty of 20 per cent of the value of the vehicle, it is going to be very expensive. We need to tax private cars more which are luxurious in nature. That will even reduce traffic jams in our cities, so that we can move faster to our places of work, spend more hours in our offices and serve Kenyans. This provision needs to be reviewed. It is not a good one. I welcome the amendments proposed to the Retirement Benefits Act because they are going to encourage accountability and transparency. The administrators of pension schemes need to be transparent and accountable. They need to give reports on their financial status, so that we can know if the public pensions are safe or not. Those are the issues which we need to capture. Capturing this in the Bill is a good thing. We are also talking of ways of addressing tax returns. Most tax returns are cooked up. They are fraudulent. I would propose that zero-rating certain items needs to be removed and in 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."
}