Local sugar firms need a ban on imports to sell.
Reason: imported sugar is cheaper.
So, Consumers pay more & still, are forced to bailout them out!🤷
They won't sell at competitive prices & won't be profitable!
Why can't they produce competitively?
The answer is the solution.
These firms need neither protection from imports nor bailouts.
Consumers shouldn't be forced to buy sugar at higher prices, when alternative lower prices exist, just to enable inefficient domestic firms sell.
Bailouts, by same consumers, is an abominable injustice.
Consumers can't be locked into higher sugar prices to sustain inefficiency into eternity & still be forced to pay for the same inefficiency. Sugar politics must be put to death.
Sugar firms must become efficient, produce competitively & compete with imports, or be left to die.
An economy that operates with such huge subsector-wide dead weight losses (include our energy sector) cannot progress.
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GoK contracted Estama, owned by Uhuru's relatives, to supply, install, commission & handover 100 mobile clinics @ Sh1B. They imported each @ ksh1.4M & sold to GoK @ Sh10M, got Sh800M & left them at Miritini, in 2015. GoK paid extra Sh1B for transport, in 2020.
Where are they now?
In 2019, Cecily Kariuki admitted clinics 4yr stay at Miritini NYS camp was due to lack of funds for transport to various counties. She suggested recipient counties foot transport cost & invited MPs to help via NGCDF!
She didn't demand Estama discharge its contractual obligation!
This far, taxpayers have paid ksh20M for each CONTAINER. But where are those mobile clinics? How on Earth did a container cost ksh20M & still remain unavailable 6yrs after being procured?
To avert a bigger debt crisis, GoK must reduce its debt load. That means paying it off without getting further indebted. Increasing taxes isn't an option. Further increase can only reduce total collection & degrade tax base.
There's only one remaining option - sell govt assets.
Going forward, GoK needs to create fiscal space -trim Expenditure, esp wasteful recurrent spending & tame grandiose debt financed infrastructure while reducing tax rates to spur growth through private enterprise. A wide tax base is only achieved by broadbased growth in incomes.
GoK must understand tax is charged on income, not people. The greater the level of income & volume of economic activities, the greater the tax base & tax revenue. Higher activity volume is achieved thro number of transactions - people. Inclusive growth is thus critical.
Opportunity cost is foregone benefit that would've been derived from an option not chosen.
This is, ideally, the best criteria for decisions on allocation of resources among/btwn competing needs.
Now, imagine many better things ksh450B spent on SGR could've done😱🤔
Imagine, instead of SGR, we spent the money in extraction, desalination & utilisation of water from Lokitipi aquifer in Turkana county. The aquifer holds 250B cubic metres of water. Kenya uses 3B cubic metres per year. bbc.com/news/science-e…
All we needed to make this water drinkable & fit for irrigation was ksh5-10Bn. GoK had no money for such a venture but was splashing ksh450B for an elegant ornamental infrastructure piece with little economic imperative. Meanwhile, Turkana hunger & thirst. theguardian.com/global-develop…
This week, GoK used ksh82.7B of your taxes to pay China Exim bank part of SGR loan. Remember SGR was to generate sh22B/yr from 1.5% import levy to service the loan.
Here's highlight some of bizarre things paid for by the loan your taxes are repaying.
Guys, you noticedNCBA is co-lead manager for new Eurobond?
Family business is harvesting a windfall from kenya's debt issue.
Recall: NCBA merger was exempted from paying millions in stamp duty - taxes.
But it's ok.
Conflict of interest doesn't apply for the overlords.
Not too long ago, GoK donated a plane load of milk powder to South Sudan. A kind gesture in every way. Save for the fact that the milk was from brookside.
So, GoK buys milk from brookside to donate to South Sudan!
Still, conflict of interest didn't apply for the plantation owner.
A Sh2B tender to supply mobile clinics went to a family owned briefcase company. The company delivered refurbished containers, received full pay & refused to pay taxes due.
Their argument about being awarded the tender was ''we too are Kenyans''.
No conflict of interest!