Author: John Bosco

If the MPs were to approve the proposed changes by the National Treasury, earnings by the retirees will be subjected to a minimum tax of 10 percent for monthly payments of up to Sh33,333, or Sh400,000 a year, and a maximum of 25 percent for those earning more than Sh100,000 a month or Sh1.2 million a year.

Luckily enough, the 2020 Finance Bill sailed through the floor of the National Assembly as Members of Parliament shot down proposals by Treasury to raise taxes from pensioners and LPG gas.

In the vote subjected to the committee of the whole house, the Members of Parliament elected to keep the majority of ammendments as brought forth by the House Finance and National Planning Committee.

While the Treasury had sought to end part of tax exemptions by levying taxes on income from the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and move LPG gas into the VAT-able category, MPS viewed the move as counter productive and elected to keep the relief.

“Through these ammendments we have returned the benefit to pensioners. We have had a lot of cries from the elderly over the proposal to tax them. What we are doing here is to save the pensioners,” said the Finance and National Planning Chairman Joseph Limo.

“We need to find more novel ways of cushioning the economy than going after vulnerable people,” added Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo.

Cheaper unga

At the same time, the National Assembly adopted reforms moving the supply of maize flour, wheat and cassava flour from exempt status into the zero-rated category.

The move desires to provide relief to Kenyans on the cost of unga by allowing flour processors to recover inputted VAT and pass-on the relief to Kenyans.

These ammendment is however expected to be scrutinized again by the House after a six-month lapse as MPS argue for a review of the plans near-term merits and demerits.

The vote on unga is a reversal from 2019, when MPs pushed the supply of the staple from zero-rated to exempt.

The review of the supply of unga is expected to provide further cushioning to Kenyans through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Beer Tax

Alcohol manufacturers and their respective clients are however expected to feel the heat of the exchequer after MPs voted to lower the coverage of excise duty on both beers and spirits to products whose alcohol strength exceeds 6 percent by volume.

The review of the inflation adjusted levy will mean higher prices for certain beers and spirits and will lead to higher costs to consumers.

The higher taxes come even as the industry faces off with the exchequer over planned cuts to the remission of excise duty levied on beer made from locally sourced raw materials/kegs.

Other proposals carried in the Finance as proposed by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani include the levying of a minimum tax charged at the rate of one percent of gross turnovers to loss making entities as the exchequer seeks to widen the tax net.

Digital firms are also set to account for a 1.5 percent tax on gross sales, a charge to be offset against other levies for companies operating locally.

Further, income generated from home ownership savings plans (HOSPs) will now be subject to taxation in spite of opposition over its impact on the government’s affordable housing initiative.

The bill is now the subject of scrutiny by President Uhuru Kenyatta who may chose to assent it as presented or send it back to the floor of the house with ammendments.

Proposals contained under the Income Tax Act and the Tax Procedures Act are expected to become effective from January 1 while all other ammendments will take effect upon the Presidential assent.

In its entirety, the 2020 Finance Bill had been aimed at raising an additional Ksh.38.9 billion from the exchequer, this projection is however diluted after running through changes in Parliament.

Tourism CS Najib Balala’s brother Jalal Balala Al Azizah General Trading and Events Organizing Company Executive Director in Dubai — and whom once came to limelight in 2018 when he paid and booked a woman from Dubai to ‘take care of him’ for three months, but allegations of cruelty and theft landed the matter in court.

Jalal Balala was accused at the Shanzu Law Courts in Mombasa of mistreating Barouskaya Krystina, a beauty from Belarus but based in Dubai where he’s a tea and coffee.

Jalala is said to have brought Krystina to Kenya on January 25, 2018 and the two were met by a government security detail at the Moi Airport Mombasa.

Jalal, the court heard, had invited Krystina for a birthday party after which she was to return to Dubai. Krystina’s brief was to offer “general duties” to Jalal who told the court he invited her as he was “old, had fractured arms and was battling cancer.”

Jalala had paid Krystina to offer the services for three months.

Well, with that short brief, he has come back once again to limelight after reports of Kenyans – his employees came out complaining of mistreatment, confiscation of the their passports by Jalal hence creating an impasse for them to travel back home on special arrangements.

The victims are complaining of living in harsh environmental conditions with financial constraints.

“Tumekwama Dubai and most of the Kenyans here waliachishwa kazi, unable to pay rent, food is another big problem,some of are forced to sleep in the street parks. We have been crying to the embassy watutafutie ndege but all seems to be in vain. We don’t need a free flight”

In Prayers and solidarity may they find justice.

Africa Star Railway Operation Company which is majorly owned by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) was contracted in May 2017 to run the passenger and cargo trains on the SGR. Africa Star manages the ticketing system, landing and offloading of cargo and collection of passenger fares, including non-cash revenues like M-Pesa.

This firm ain’t new to scandals as it has made headlines frequently with reports of racial abuse among the Chinese staff and the local employees. It has been severally sued by Railway and Allied Workers Union (RAWU) who’ve been trying to file a complaint with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) which is parent to Africa star over alleged mistreatment of local workers loudly racism since 2017 up to date but the fruits have been futile.

In 2018, Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) MD Atanas Maina confirmed the firm (KRC) was to subject the managers to a thorough probe over alleged unethical labour practices against Kenyan workers and if found culpable, tough action would be taken against them in accordance with the law. It was also the height of questions on how Kenya Railways was spending Sh1B monthly to run SGR.

“We have launched investigations into alleged incidents of mistreatment of local staff employed to facilitate operations at the standard gauge railway. This is unethical conduct, if found to be authentic action will be taken in accordance with the contract between us and the operator and in accordance with the laws of Kenya,” said Mr Maina.

Africa star issued its employees with gagging orders barring them from leaking any information about the firm’s activities signed a five-year operations, maintenance and service agreement with Kenya Railways for the Mombasa-Nairobi segment of the SGR line.

China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), asked local staff to sign secrecy agreements to prevent them from taking pictures and posting them on social media or sharing them with other media outlets.“One should not post negative articles or writings or videos or photos on social media or Facebook or YouTube and etc involving SGR operations,” a copy of the secrecy agreement read in part.

Alleged number of rights violations have been tremendous like Chinese staff can never sit on the same table with Kenyans and locals are not expected to join their tables either. They are also not allowed to use Chinese vans during drop-off and pick-up times. CRBC – Africa star has also been accused in the past of providing security to their Chinese counterparts on construction sites and leaving local employers at the mercy of wild animals.

After all these wild mistreatment they seem to be relenting with a new case arising as the firm recently fired one of it’s employee by the name Boniface a Assistant Shunting locomotive driver for sharing an article that exposed the firm in a WhatsApp group (TEAM SGR) which Boniface was the sole admin. An article which he says, he only shared because it was an explicit expose to the firm without reading the whole content.

Talking to Kenya insights, Boniface said “The worst part is they forced us to come back to Nairobi where there’s over 2000 corona virus cases from village just to fire us, telling them to wait till Ministry of Health advices us when it’s safe, they said if we don’t come they’ll decide next step without our input.”

In what is clearly unfair dismissal and harassment by the Chinese employer, Boniface has gone public with his plight to highlight what many others are going through.

Despite the fact that Boniface was dismissed without fair trial before the board’s committee, Boniface is a hero for standing firm with what is right and have paid the ultimate price. Five more SGR employees were fired alongside Boniface for sharing the article in hand. Sammy Gichuhi, the DGM, AfriStar is cited as having bulldozed the employees to delete their social media posts exposing the firm as a condition to keep their jobs not they were fired regardless.

Unless SGR employees continue speak out, the oppression shall never come to end. And being that the same violation is still persistent since 2018 up today 2020 questions where the loophole even after several suits have been filed against the firm by several entities but nothing seems to take a U-turn, situation just escalating. 

City Park was originally 90 acres but has been illegally reduced to 63 acres through land grabbing.

On June 10, the park ceased to be under the county government of Nairobi after it was placed under KFS.

On Friday last week, KFS deployed its rangers at the park. The government has ordered persons running businesses at City Park to shut them down.

Environment CS Keriako Tobiko on Wednesday announced that the government was taking back the entire park and reverting everything to the public.

Businesses to be affected include a hotel run by a former senior official of the county government of Nairobi. Tobiko lamented that some entities had been profiteering from the public facility. “Some entities have no conscience. They think that they are very smart by acquiring public land. You cannot have a valid title for public land,” he said.

The CS spoke at City Park where he presided over celebrations to mark the World Desertification and Drought Day. He was accompanied by Environment and Forestry PS Chris Kiptoo, acting director of Nema Mamo Mamo, Environment CAS Mohamed Elmi and Chief Conservator of Forests Julius Kamau, among others.

Tobiko said that any every part of the park that had been grabbed would be repossessed. The minister said the level of destruction at City Park was shameful and alarming, which triggered President Uhuru Kenyatta to direct the park to be placed under the Kenya Forest Service.

To boost security, CS Tobiko stated that the government would soon fence off City Park but members of the public will continue to access it free of charge irrespective of their status in the community.

“City Park is monumental to the history of Kenya and war veterans such as Vice President Joseph Murumbi and his wife and Pio Gama Pinto were laid to rest here,” he said. Nema acting director general Mamo noted that forest land is facing serious degradation due to population increase.

Nema was tasked to handle waste and air pollution management in the park. “We shall ensure the park maintains a clean environment as well as protect the natural resources in it, ” Mamo said.

Chief Conservator of Forests Julius Kamau said environmental conservation is a collective responsibility. “As Kenya Forest Service works towards the 10 per cent forest recover, we all have a role to play in it,” he said.

The President has urged KFS to fast track the Forest Management Plan with community associations for the forests to be fenced.

“We are also reclaiming our Ngong forest. We are going to start the process of fencing it and ensuring that it is available not only for the present but also for future generations,” Uhuru said.

KFS intends to recover over 1,000 acres from individuals in Ngong Forest. According to Tobiko, out of the 7,000 acres of forest land , only 1,000 acres has not been encroached on by individuals.

“Those who have acquired land from Ngong Forest should get ready to surrender their title deeds because we are coming for you soon,” he said.

Ahead of next month’s release of Sh11 billion under the final phase of 2017-2021 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has ordered a recount of headteachers, their deputies and senior teachers .

This is after it emerged that country directors provided wrong information to the TSC ahead of the implementation of the Sh54 billion CBA for school administrators in July 2017.

TSC chief executive officer Nancy Macharia has directed the country directors to file accurate data by June 30.

“It has been established that some of you provided inaccurate and misleading data leading to erroneous conversion,” the TSC boss said.

“Classroom teachers were converted to grades exclusively reserved for institutional administrators, teachers serving as deputy or senior teachers were wrongly captured as head teachers while in other instances, staffing levels in terms of required administrators in a school exceeded the optimum establishment contrary to the established norms,” reads the circular by Mrs Macharia.

Close to 100,000 principals, their deputies, headteachers and senior teachers will get a pay rise in July. In a circular dated June 3, Mrs Macharia said before the implementation of the current CBA on July 1, 2017 county directors were instructed to validate the data for institutional administrators who were on duty as at June 30 2017.

Across the continent, 21 elections are scheduled between for this, — including 11 for the presidency or office of the prime minister — and 13 elections are scheduled for 2021.

In the region, Burundi went to polls on May 20 and Tanzania is scheduled to hold a general election in October. In March, Guinea, Cameroon and Mali held legislative votes. In April, Mali held its second round legislative polls. And in May, Benin went ahead with local elections.

The Gambia, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all suspended sub-national elections.

Therefore, Pan African Lawyers Union (Palu) has moved to the African Court on Human Rights and People’s Rights in Arusha to have elections scheduled in 21 African countries postponed, citing the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Palu, whose membership is drawn from individual lawyers and national lawyers’ associations on the continent, filed the request on June 2, and wants the court to issue rules and standards to govern elections during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lawyers want the court to advise the African Union, African states and citizens on the legal obligations and applicable standards, whether they decide to proceed with elections that were scheduled during this period, or should they opt to postpone them.

“Elected governments will only be considered legitimate by their citizens if elections are transparent, inclusive, and credible,” said Chidi Odinkalu, a senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative.

“African governments must ensure the health and safety of voters during this unprecedented health emergency while also protecting the integrity of the democratic process,’’ he said.
Palu’s petition is based on the premise that while many AU member states have opted to adopt their own practices in handling elections amid the pandemic, there are growing calls for a harmonised approach that will safeguard the right to effectively participate in civic duty as enshrined in the key legal instruments of the AU and of the Regional Economic Communities.