Instances Tower in Nairobi, the headquarters of Kenya Income Authority. FILE PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NMG

The chairman of the Kenya Income Authority, Anthony Mwaura Nganga, has been compelled to eat the standard pie and beat a hasty retreat over a categorical assertion and announcement he had made on tax aid hardly a day earlier.

His first assertion: “Kenya Income Authority in concurrence with the Nationwide Treasury has suspended all tax aid funds with impact from twenty eighth Feb 2023 till additional discover”.

I feel anyone suggested him that he had made a blunder which he wanted to appropriate urgently. The making of tax coverage just isn’t inside the mandate of KRA. And, the powers of the board chairman of KRA are restricted to operational points.

When he got here again to appropriate the blunder, the supply was nearly comical. He insisted that he was ‘clarifying’ the assertion he had made.

A clarification doesn’t vacate categorical statements and bulletins made by a regulator. The person ought to have simply admitted the error and apologised. All human beings make errors.

That is what he mentioned within the so-called ‘clarification’: “This doesn’t imply that the reliefs have been scrapped. The scrapping of aid can solely be carried out via modification of the regulation”. Pure duplicity, when you requested me.

His appointment by President William Ruto as chairman of this key State company didn’t come as a shock to anybody. The place the general public sector is nicely managed, appointments are based mostly on expertise and related expertise.

At present, the rave within the company world is what is thought in enterprise faculty mumbo jumbo as “deep area data and understanding”, the argument being that one must have a broad-based understanding of a specific trade to qualify to be appointed to workplace.

In Kenya, the state of affairs is totally different and President Ruto’s administration has solely adopted his predecessors. Dangerous politics is why the historical past of parastatals has been a protracted and boring story of inefficient and debt-plagued State businesses.

Learn: KRA strikes its home tax unit to Sameer advanced

Even underneath a brand new Structure, we’re but to discard the unhealthy company governance practices which have undermined administration and impeded important strategic parastatals from serving to the nation to attain its growth ambitions.

All of it begins with pre-election offers through which ethnic kingpins agree on a components for sharing public jobs and positions between their cronies and to the exclusion of others.

The Deputy President, Mr Rigathi Gachagua, not too long ago added to the nomenclature of this phenomenon by introducing the idea of shareholders and describing patronage as a system the place ‘shareholders’ should eat whereas ‘non-shareholders’ sit out.

That is the follow of arbitrarily filling boards of parastatals with political appointees with out regard to {qualifications} and expertise and primarily on the grounds of political loyalty.

These political appointees and cronies will method their work within the State company as if what’s most essential is private service, obedience, and responsibility to the ethnic kingpins who appointed them to these positions.

Trendy company virtues corresponding to hierarchical authority, experience, and neutrality are thrown out of the window. When, as a political appointee to a high parastatal job, you understand that you’ve got the assist of a robust patron, you’ll interact within the freelance rent-seeking protected within the data that you’ll get pleasure from safety from the appointing authority.

Will we realise what a steady and professionally run tax company can ship to the macro economic system? Have we weighed the potential and function {that a} well-managed KRA can play as we battle to shore up our dwindling revenues?

Pork barrel appointments won’t finish quickly on this nation. Mr Mwaura is eminently certified for an appointment based mostly on the political worth he delivered to the brand new regime.

However what the KRA wants is an individual that may leverage on his personal standing, calibre, and expertise in public service to steer it to the subsequent degree. We need to widen and deepen the tax base.

Each different yr, the bankers affiliation publishes statistics that present that the banking sector pays a disproportionate share of company taxes when in comparison with its contribution to GDP.

Learn: KRA misses tax targets by Sh27bn in Ruto presidency

The phenomenon of a compliant few is a really massive subject. What this nation wants is a well-managed and professionally run tax company guided by a board that practises good company governance.