From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013
There are several reasons why Jubilee government must ensure the controversial Value Added Tax Bill 2013 must pass through parliament. First there is ICC case against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto coming. All these need tax payers’ money. There is also 53 billion budgeted for laptops in primary schools. It is your money to pay all these.
This is despite that the Catholic bishops in Kenya have strongly warned the government against imposing taxes on basic commodities saying doing so would burden Kenyans further, majority of whom are poor and can hardly have three meals a day.
The Jubilee government has prepared a VAT Bill 2013 in which it plans to impose value added tax on goods previously zero-rated. They include bread, milk, maize flour, sanitary pads and newspapers.
The 9th Bill of the Jubilee government’s national assembly will be read for the first time by the Chairperson, Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade immediately after the Finance Bill 2013 will have been read. If it is passed by the parliament the cost of living will go up by 16 percent taxation.
Section 7(1) of the VAT Act allows the Cabinet Secretary for Finance to gazette amendments to the First Schedule by increasing or decreasing any of the rates of tax by an amount not exceeding twenty five per cent of the rate set out therein or to amend, vary or replace the Sixth and Seventh Schedules.
Section 7(2) says that “Every order made under subsection (1) shall be laid before the National Assembly without unreasonable delay, and unless a resolution approving the order is passed by the National Assembly within twenty days of the day on which the National Assembly next sits after the order is so laid, it shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder”.
Section 8 of the current VAT Act notes that, “Where a taxable person supplies goods or services and the supply is zero rated, then no tax shall be charged on the supply, but it shall, in all other respects, be treated as a taxable supply and accordingly the rate at which tax is treated as charged on the supply shall be nil.
A supply or importation of goods or services is zero rated by virtue of this section if the goods or services are of the description for the time being specified in Part A of the Fifth Schedule or imported or purchased by persons specified in Part C of the Eighth Schedule.”
Apart from ICC cases and laptops, the Treasury has projected that Kenya’s public debt will hit Sh2.4 trillion in the next three years, equivalent to a growth of Sh520 billion from the current level and the government need to repay these debts.
The overall public debt is projected to rise in nominal terms to Sh1.88 trillion from Sh1.62 trillion in June 2012. Kenya’s public debt has, in gross terms, increased to Sh1.62 trillion representing 49.5 per cent of the GDP last year from Sh1.48 trillion or 53.4 per cent of GDP in June 2011.
The domestic component grew to Sh858.8 billion equivalent to 26.2 per cent of GDP in 2012 compared to 764.2 billion (27.4 per cent) the previous year. Interest payment on Kenya’s public debt has also hit Sh101 billion, exceeding the allocation for most government ministries in an indication of the strain that borrowing is exerting on the national budget.
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is expected to collect Sh880 billion in the next financial year, up by 22 per cent compared to the 2012/13 target, and any deficit could see the government return to the domestic market for more debt.
According to the review for up to third quarter of the financial year 2012/2013, published by the ministry of finance, shows that between June 2012 and March 2013 Kenya’s foreign debt increased to $9.9561 billion (Sh844 billion) from $9.195 (Sh780 billion).
The Budgetary Review Report shows that as at March 2013, Japan was Kenya’s largest bilateral lender at $1.02 billion (Sh86.5 billion) while the World Banks’ International Development Association (IDA) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) accounted for $3.63 billion (Sh308 billion).
Multilateral lenders are the biggest foreign debt owners accounting for 59.9 per cent or $5.73 billion (Sh486 billion) of the debt stock, bilateral lenders accounted for 31.2 per cent or $2.98 billion (Sh252.8 billion) while commercial banks and others accounted for the remaining $850 million (Sh72 billion) or 8.9 per cent.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Facebook-omolo beste
Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
COMPLIMENTARIES ON MY YESTERDAY ARTICLE
From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2013
Following my article of yesterday on why Jubilee government will ensure the Vat Bill 2013 will pass through parliament I have received good compliments from our readers. Some reminding me of some of my previous articles in which I warned Kenyans that let us not vote along tribal lines because your tribe will not make easy life for you.
Kenyans are to be ready to brace hardships because they are expected to pay taxes on their basic needs to cater for ICC cases at The Hague, to build Mwai Kibaki an office worth 270 million Kenyan shillings. Kenyans are yet to be taxed more to pay Ksh 100 million to the luxurious jet William Ruto used to lobby African leaders to have their ICC case brought back to Kenya.
Kenyans are also to pay another tax to enable the government get Ksh 100 million to furnish Deputy President’s house in Karen. This is happening at a time when the government is facing a budget deficit of Ksh 24 billion to finance the county governments, and at a time when millions of Kenyans are unable to put food on the table due to run-away prices of basic consumer commodities.
During the period when the jet was hired the Presidential jet was available and idle. Since Ruto claimed that he was not using tax payers’ money to lobby African leaders to bring back ICC case to Kenya but his tour was representing Uhuru Kenyatta during the trip, the best option could have been to use the Presidential jet and save the tax payer millions of Kenyan shillings.
One of our readers, Dennis from Nairobi writes: “Father Beste, the reality has now to down on all Kenyans that the burden will be borne by all regardless of whether they belong to TNA or not.
This is a conspiracy by a cornered political class, I guess one thing you have forgotten to mention is the 5m grants to all MPs and Senators, it is simply bribery and to me the 11th parliament may perform worse than the 10th one.
Off course the honey moon is over with nothing much in terms of goodwill grants / funds from donors both bilateral and multilateral. Let us brace for hard times ahead, as even the workers goodwill starting with the teachers is already gone. For sure does the Kenyan child need a laptop? Let us just remember Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”.
According to humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, our actions are motivated in order to achieve certain needs. Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and his subsequent book Motivation and Personality.
This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs. This hierarchy is most often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep, and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security.
After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition, and accomplishment.
Already many Kenyans are hustlers, it would mean that if basic needs are taxed expect more Kenyans to be hustlers. According to Urban dictionary hustler is someone who knows how to get money from others. It includes cone men and women, selling drugs, rolling dice, pimpin among others. You simply hustle to get that money for survival.
That is why women who sleep with dogs do not mind what people say about them, so do prostitutes, nude dancers, child commercial sex workers, child labour, you name them. Life has become too difficult to them that they do not mind in which way to earn the living.
In other words, a hustler is the way one lives his life. Going out on the streets or wherever making money and working hard for it. A hustler is not lazy he’s consistently out earning money. He gets the money by using his smarts and out cunning everyone out there.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Facebook-omolo beste
Twitter-@8000accomole
Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002