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FIRST WORD On The Debt Pit
It was a pleasant surprise to finally discover that someone in the tax department has a sense of humor when they put out ads informing us that Stella , who was returning home from abroad , needed to check her tax status as she may not have filed her returns for thirty years .
For the non-local music aficionados , the ad that was run on 17th May was in reference of some musician ’ s sweet heart who came back into the country on that day in the company of her Japanese husband , carrying a child , to the utter dismay of the musician .
The song in which he is sharing his grief since he had sponsored Stella ’ s trip abroad for further education only for her to betray him is ironic since the Kenya government seems intent on betraying the public on a daily basis in the use of the tax that is collected .
It is nice to see a human face to tax collection and it is a fact that the usual strong arm threats and intimidation just increases the resolve of the payer to avoid paying tax especially when one cannot see any relatable benefit to compliance .
This creative and humorous way to encourage tax compliance belies a serious problem that the country is facing which we are conveniently sweeping under the rug and hope that it will disappear but which won ’ t and it is a fact that the country is facing a debt crisis .
With a debt level of up to seventy per cent of GDP , it means that we are technically insolvent as a country and we are in that unfortunate position of having to seek debt rescheduling and restructuring which is a nice way of saying we are going to borrow money to pay debt .
If we were to be honest as a country , we actually don ’ t have the money to even hold the forth-coming elections which are unnecessarily expensive due to a constitution that allows personal ego boosting candidates to waste our time and resources just to be on the ballot paper .
If this election ends up with a run-off , which at the moment seems very likely , then the cost of the elections will skyrocket and we shall end up spending even more of the money that we don ’ t have to put politicians in power who are bent on fleecing the country .
The recent fuel crisis should have raised our collective red flags since the explanation given for the shortage did not make sense including the dramatic expulsion of an oil company boss as if an individual can organize the touted economic sabotage .
The truth is that the government was diverting money that ran into billions , which belongs to the oil majors to plug the many debt pits that it had created by mismanaging the tax collected and outright corruption which has depleted the national coffers .
It is a wise saying that advises one to stop digging if you find yourself in a hole where you can ’ t get out , but in the case of Kenya we seem determined to dig the hole deeper yet there is sufficient evidence globally that this is a dangerous route to take .
Sri Lanka has imploded because the government undertook huge tax cuts imagining that putting more money into the hands of citizens would spur economic activity but because of various issues including the unforeseen pandemic resulted in the soaring of the budget deficit .