The Kenya Revenue Authority(KRA) is set to auction an estimated 443 vehicles which have overstayed in different customs warehouses after their owners failed to pay taxes and other charges.
KRA’s chief manager in charge of port operations, Rose Mureithi, said the vehicle owners have a month to pick them up before they are auctioned on December 15.
“Pursuant to the provisions of section 42 of the East African Community Customs Management Act, 2004, notice is given that unless the under-mentioned goods are entered and removed from the Customs Warehouse within thirty days from the date of this notice they will be sold by public auction on December 15, 2022," she said in a November 11, 2022 notice.
The KRA intends to recover millions of shillings in tax dues from the sale that comes amid tight revenue performance.
The tax man is pressed to maximise collections after its collections from consumption and income taxes for the first quarter of the year fell short of the target by Sh13.9 billion. KRA collected Sh459.5 billion from earnings by workers and companies as well as consumption levies, comprising excise duty, value-added tax (VAT), and import duty, according to provisional data released by the Treasury Thursday.
This was 2.94 percent, or Sh13.9 billion, short of the Sh473.2 billion tax target set by the Treasury for the three months through to September 2022. The underperformance is set to put the taxman under more pressure coming from a previous regime where it reported surplus collection and boasted of exceeding tax targets by over Sh140 billion in a year.
The sale is also intended to decongest the port and its warehouses as more traders returned their operations to the port city following a directive by President William Ruto.
Acting on a presidential directive, the Kenya Ports Authority in September issued a notice quashing a 2018 notification banning the nomination of cargo to Mombasa and compulsory use of the standard gauge railway (SGR) for ferrying cargo. The quashed directive was issued by former President Uhuru Kenyatta as part of a plan to ring-fence revenue for servicing loans used to construct the SGR.
President Ruto’s move came amid protests by cargo transporters had been protesting the directive by former President Uhuru Kenyatta to ferry their goods to Nairobi or Naivasha via the SGR for onward clearance, saying it had raised the cost of doing business, with the costs passed on to consumers.
