Former Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner-General Humphrey Wattanga.
Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner General Humprey Wattanga refused to resign amid pressure from the National Treasury, a stand that pushed the taxman’s Board of Directors to fire him on Wednesday evening.
The authority yesterday said Mr Wattanga’s removal will take leave with immediate effect, suggesting a fallout with the board.
Hours after his removal from the corner office at Times Tower, President William Ruto nominated Mr Wattanga for the position of High Commissioner in South Africa. Should Parliament approve the nomination, Mr Wattanga will move to Pretoria.
A source at the board reckoned that Mr Wattanga rejected Treasury’s push for him to resign, prompting the board to oust him.
“Top Treasury officials felt he was not doing enough on the technological front to push for higher tax collections despite huge tech upgrades. The system downtimes had surged,” said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.
“He was asked in the morning to resign, but he declined. The board pulled the trigger early afternoon,” a source at the KRA Board said.
Several managers at Times Tower said, in confidence, that Mr Wattanga’s removal had caught them by surprise.
KRA Board chairperson Ndiritu Muriithi
Lilian Nyawanda, the Commissioner of Customs and Border Control, will act as the interim head of KRA.
The changes come amid pressure on KRA to weed out tax evaders and boost revenue through the use of technology.
Mr Wattanga was among a group of commissioners appointed shortly after President Ruto took office in September 2022, as the new administration sought to overhaul the country’s tax system.
The role proved challenging, with KRA bearing the brunt of public anger over aggressive tax measures aimed at steering the country away from debt distress.
Nonetheless, KRA failed to meet its revenue targets since Mr Wattanga was tapped for the top job.
“The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Board informs the public that it will not be renewing Mr. Humphrey Wattanga’s Contract of Service as Commissioner General. Consequently, and in accordance with his Contract of Service, he is proceeding on terminal leave effective immediately,” KRA chairperson Ndiritu Muriithi said in a statement this evening.
The board order cut short his first term, which was due to end in August, and came weeks after KRA announced it had completed a revamp of its executive suite that started last July.
“He was fixed by tech. Treasury people complained that there was no return on huge technology investments,” said a KRA executive who did not want to be named for fear of State reprisals.
Treasury last year launched a probe over a suspected insider job at the KRA as a possible cause of tax system outages.
It said the system failure had a major impact on revenue collections when the country is racing to boost revenues and cut reliance on debt.
Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner, Customs and Border Control, Ms Lilian Nyawanda. She will act as the interim head of KRA.
The Integrated Customs Management System (iCMS) failed earlier, halting clearance of goods through entry points such as the Port of Mombasa, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and inland container depots and container freight stations (CFSs).
State House has previously accused the tax collection agency’s staff of cutting government revenue by engaging in corruption, colluding with tax evaders and taking bribes.
President William Ruto also accused KRA staff of resisting and sabotaging attempts to digitise revenue collection in the past, to prevent the government from sealing loopholes.
In terms of tax collected as a proportion of annual economic output, Kenya has been underperforming other nations like South Africa as it struggles to widen the tax net.
This week, Mr Wattanga said KRA was ramping use of technology and enforcement tools to raise Sh932 billion in the final three months of the current financial year in a bid to meet its Sh2.97 trillion annual revenue target.
The aggressive final-quarter push comes after the agency collected Sh2.038 trillion by the end of March—the first time it has crossed the Sh2 trillion mark within nine months.
The receipts were Sh209 billion, or 11.43 percent, more than the Sh1.83 trillion haul in a similar period the year before.
The revenue, however, fell short of the Sh2.122 trillion target, leaving a gap and piling pressure on KRA to accelerate collections in the final stretch of the financial year.
The authority has introduced a WhatsApp-based filing service powered by an artificial intelligence chatbot known as “Shuru,” alongside USSD services targeting taxpayers without smartphones in a bid to widen the tax base. The tools are aimed at drawing more informal sector players into the tax net.
The Electronic Tax Invoice Management System (eTIMS) has also been deployed to enhance real-time monitoring of transactions, particularly in value-added tax, where fraud and underreporting have historically eroded collections.
Poached from the private sector, Mr Wattanga was tasked not only with boosting tax collection but also with transforming the image of the agency from one perceived as harsh and repressive.
His reform push included plans to rebrand the KRA into the Kenya Revenue Service, one of several initiatives left incomplete.
An alumnus of Alliance High School, Mr Wattanga scored straight As in the KCSE, earning admission to Harvard University, where he studied biochemical sciences, before completing an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He built a career in finance, operating in the rarefied world of investment management, most recently serving as managing director at Meghraj Capital.
He also previously served as commissioner and vice-chair of the Commission on Revenue Allocation for a constitutionally mandated six-year term.
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