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{
    "id": 990832,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/990832/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 35,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Ruaraka, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. T.J. Kajwang’",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2712,
        "legal_name": "Tom Joseph Kajwang'",
        "slug": "kajwang-tom-joseph-francis"
    },
    "content": " Hon. Deputy Speaker, I request for a Statement pursuant to Standing Order No.44 (2) (c) on tax evasion and repackaging of alcoholic beverages. Pursuant to Standing Order No.44 (2) (c), I wish to request for a Statement from the Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning on tax evasion and repackaging of alcoholic beverages by several companies in the country. We recognise the impact of public and private sector investments to the economic growth of this country. It is evident that import businesses generate significant revenue in terms of import and custom taxes. However, in the last 12 months, several companies imported over 200 million empty bottles of 250 millilitres from Pragati Glass Gulf and Nizwa Industrial Estate in Nizwa, Oman and Kioo Limited, Saza Road, Dar-es-Salaam, and obtained bottle caps from Torrent East African Limited. The said bottles were allegedly cleared duty free into the country. The bottles were subsequently refilled with liquor in various brands, sealed with fake Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) stickers and excise terms and sold to unsuspecting customers. The firms involved are Zheng Hong, Patiala Distillers, Hill Kenya Limited, Mount Kenya Breweries, Saiwan Enterprises, Vine Park FRM, Platinum Distillers, Moonwalk Investments Limited, Tihan Limited and Two Cousins Distillers. The brands manufactured and packaged by those companies with fake KEBS stickers and excise stamps are invariably low-cost products with very high percentage alcoholic content and are sold mainly to low income earners, mostly youths. Whereas the bottle tops generally fall under the excise tax regimes, bottles do not, thus making it possible for fraudulent manufacturers to evade paying tax on bottles. Concerned that tax evasion, counterfeiting and refilling are a common practice in those companies, I hereby seek your directive to cause the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning to undertake an inquiry on the matter and report to the House on the following: (i) The total tax paid by the same firms between January 2019 and March 2020 and whether the firms are tax compliant and, if not, why? (ii) The correlations between the quantities of the empty bottles and the bottle tops supplied…"
}