Garissa livestock traders oppose increased levies, threaten to sue

The Kenya livestock marketing council has threatened to move to court to stop the implementation of new levies put in place by the Garissa county government.

On Wednesday last week, cess collectors announced increased levies for traders which take effect immediately.

In the new levies, a permit to transport livestock from the market to either Nairobi or Mombasa has been increased from 500 to 2,000.

Any cow getting in the market is charged Sh100 from Sh80 while any cow  loaded in a track is charged Sh350 from Sh300.

Goat traders now have to pay the county Sh50 from Sh10 for every goat they sell.

Speaking to the press at the market on Monday, the council's chairperson Dubat Amey said it was wrong for the county to hike the levies at the market—the biggest in Northern Kenya —without putting into consideration the economic status of the pastoralists.

According to Amey, the pastoralists were still reeling from the effects of drought which hit the sector hard and saw them lose their animals in big numbers.

“It is unfortunate that the county just woke up one day and decided to increase the levies without consultations. Our traders were on Wednesday ordered to pay the new levies.  We find this punitive and we will move to court to challenge the plan if they insist on implementing them,” Amey said.

He said sometime last year, the livestock council met with officials from the urban planning who are in charge of market management where they agreed to among other things, improve the general hygiene and sanitation of the market before reviewing the levies.

“As we speak, there are no toilets in the market yet this were some of things we agreed must be fixed before anything else is done. What we are saying is this, there is no taxation without presentation,” Amey said.

Mohamed Hakar, a trader said the market lacked basic necessities like clean safe water while garbage lies uncollected.

“We will resist any attempts to have us pay more levies because we don’t see the need. Let them first fix the problems we have and then we can sit  and talk about levies,” he said.

Speaking separately on phone, livestock executive Mohamed Shale said he was not aware of the new rates noting that for any adjustments to be made there must consultations between stakeholders, something he said has not been done.

Holugho MCA Adow Omar said the assembly is yet to pass the 2022-2022 Finance Bill noting that the one that was being used was the 2020-2021 bill.

“As an assembly, we have not done any amendments to the Finance Bill which would have seen an increase in the levies the traders currently pay. It is still in the public participation stage, the traders should continue paying what they have been paying before,” Omar said.

-Edited by SKanyara