Government issues clarification on reports monitoring peoples’ mobile money transactions
The government, on Thursday, January 26, disclosed that it would majorly focus on telecommunication companies to monitor mobile money transactions
The government, on Thursday, January 26, disclosed that it would majorly focus on telecommunication companies to monitor mobile money transactions.
This follows a draft policy allowing President William Ruto’s administration to monitor mobile transactions.
The government promised to build up its own mechanisms to monitor transactions on the telecommunication platforms in order to reach the Ksh3 trillion revenue target set by Ruto for the upcoming fiscal year.
They (telecommunications providers) will be forced to remit their revenue on a daily basis based on the information acquired.
To obtain real-time data on transactions, the government aims to bring mobile money systems within the purview of telecoms under the proposed new plan.
The telecommunications firms’ networks would enable them to collect pertinent data, including on specific financial activities.
However, it will not invade people’s privacy in the process, as outlined in the draft 2023 Budget Policy Statement.
“We do not want to rely on the information given to us by the telcos. We want to go in there and see for ourselves so that the deduction can be done on a daily basis.
“We will also use this technology to monitor the people on the telcos to determine what taxes they will contribute depending on their transactions,” KRA official stated.
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The government defended the installation of new, sophisticated systems in telcos by revealing that they had been tried out in some other sectors and had improved tax collection by 50%.
Additionally, the new technology closed income collection gaps.
The new system is also credited with helping the government cut back on its borrowing binge.
“We have already deployed the technology in other sectors and we have witnessed massive gains. We expect this to happen in the telcos as well,” the government insisted.
According to the draft 2023 Budget Policy Statement enforcing the new measures will curb tax cheats in the country and help revive the economy.
“The Government will undertake to roll out electronic Tax Invoice Management System (eTIMS), reduction of Corporate Income Tax (CIT) gap from 32.2 percent to 30.0 percent of the potential as envisaged in the KRA Corporate Plan and integration of tax system with the Telecommunication companies (Telcos),” the draft 2023 Budget Policy Statement read.
Ruto, on the other side, maintained that tightening revenue collection was key to enabling the country to fund education.
“Every Kenyan should pay their part of taxes so that the state can have the money to make sure every child of Kenya goes to school without burdening their parents,” the Head of State clarified.
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