• Kemsa has paid out Sh4 billion to suppliers of PPE and other consumables that were procured to help in the fight against Covid.
• Only 15 of the 102 companies under probe by the National Assembly’s Public Investment Committee declared supplies to Kemsa and paid VAT
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
The Kenya Revenue Authority is going after 77 companies implicated in the Sh8.7 billion Kemsa saga for failing to declare their supplies, hence candidates of tax evasion.
KRA Commissioner General Githii Mburu said the taxman is conducting compliance reviews on the companies to validate if they supplied or not.
“In light of the information obtained from the report and the amounts involved, KRA will also undertake an in-depth audit of the firms,” the KRA boss said.
He said only 15 of the 102 companies under probe by the National Assembly’s Public Investment Committee declared supplies to Kemsa and paid VAT. Eight companies had supplies exempted from tax.
Three companies are international companies that are operating in the Kenyan jurisdiction without a Personal Identification Number (PIN).
Mburu said non-resident companies are allowed to operate in a jurisdiction without a PIN, but their tax contributions are withheld at non-resident rates.
“We are verifying if they have paid or if the taxes were retained. We do a background check to see if they are international or local,” the KRA boss said.
Mburu said KRA will look at Kemsa obligations declared this year to ascertain if the medical supplier withheld and remitted the tax. It is then that the amounts owed in unpaid tax will be known.
He said such companies are required to do self-declaration. He said they are awaiting returns expected in June to ascertain the level of compliance on the part of Kemsa suppliers.
PIC chairman Abdulswamad Nassir (Mvita MP) said they were surprised some companies traded huge volumes and were paid hundreds of millions of shillings but have not paid taxes.
“We have interrogated some companies that informed us they bought the supplies from a beauty parlour,” he said, raising concerns of how procurement laws were shoved aside in the Kemsa dealings.
The committee is probing the companies following Auditor General Nancy Gathungu's report which showed that over Sh2.3 billion was lost in dubious Kemsa procurement.
KRA data showed that 43 companies made importations for Covid-19 supplies and paid import tax totalling Sh324 million. The imports were valued at about Sh2 billion.
Angelica Medical Supplies, Megascope Healthcare (K) Ltd, Kilig Ltd, La Miguela Holdings, Petrel Agencies, Nanopay and Shop N Buy Ltd are among entities that pay import tax.
Kemsa has since paid out Sh4 billion to suppliers of personal protective equipment and other consumables that were procured to help in the fight against Covid.
PIC is probing whether taxpayers got value for money in the purchases, most of which are still at the warehouses.
EACC had equally completed its investigation into the scam and said in its latest quarterly report that it had forwarded the file to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for further action.