Summary
- KRA said collections from non-oil imports averaged Sh1.257 billion daily in the July-December 2017 period compared with Sh1.126 billion a year earlier.
- Commissioner-general John Njiraini also attributed the growth in daily revenue flows at the Customs to “benchmarking of cargo values to address undervaluation” and “stricter application of cargo auction processes”.
Increased use of cargo scanners at the port of Mombasa and the
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport largely helped the taxman to grow
daily non-oil revenue by Sh131 million in six months ended last December
compared to the similar period in 2016, fresh data shows.
The
Kenya Revenue Authority said collections from non-oil imports averaged
Sh1.257 billion daily in the July-December 2017 period compared with
Sh1.126 billion a year earlier.
Commissioner-general
John Njiraini also attributed the growth in daily revenue flows at the
Customs to “benchmarking of cargo values to address undervaluation” and
“stricter application of cargo auction processes”.
“Customs
recorded overall growth of 7.7 per cent, with non-oil collections,
which account for about 70 per cent of revenue growing at 8.1 per cent,”
Mr Njiraini, whose second three-year expires on March 3, said in a
statement.
“Customs performance, however, continued to be adversely
impacted by sluggish import growth with container volumes in H (first
half) recording marginal growth of 2.8 per cent compared to growth of
4.9 per cent in H1 of FY (financial year) 2016-17 (which ended last
June).”
The Scanner Integration Project, which connects
all readers at border entry points to a command centre at Time Tower,
has been largely funded by the Chinese government.
The integration started last October and was initially set to be completed by March.
The integration started last October and was initially set to be completed by March.
The
integration is expected to help customs officials monitor and analyse
contents of cargo entering and leaving the country from the command
centre.
About Sh1 billion was invested in the project
last year, comprised of Sh900 million the Chinese government spent on
acquiring additional scanners and a further Sh100 million for their
installation.
The
project is expected to clamp down on smuggling of goods into the
country by rogue traders and reduce collusion by various actors at
border points to defraud the taxman revenue through corrupt deals.
“Previously
scanning operations were localised at the point of scanning, meaning
that Customs leadership did not have ongoing visibility about scanning
operations,” Mr Njiraini said in an interview on December 15.
“[With
new development], our experts are able to perform the necessary image
analysis that would previously only have been possible in Mombasa.”
KRA
introduced the cargo readers as part of a major strategy to tame tax
cheats who usually made false declaration of goods handed for
processing.
It has scanners at key ports of entry,
including Kilindini port, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA),
Moi International Airport, Mombasa, Eldoret International Airport, the
Inland Container Depot in Embakasi and a few Container Freight Stations
(CFSs).
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