Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) plans to spend a whooping Sh496 million in a staff vetting exercise ostensibly aimed at weeding out those suspected to be involved in fraudulent transactions robbing off the taxman billions.
A copy of KRA’s Employment Suitability Assessment (ESA) programme presented to the National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee on October 29 by Commissioner General John Njiraini, reveals that the purpose of the exercise is to determine “suitability for employment or continued employment”.
Estimated budget for the exercise comes at a time when there is an outcry over inflated public procurement expenditure by agencies at both National and County government levels thus putting KRA on the spot.
The breakdown of ESA expenditure to be incurred in the current financial year (2015/16) paints a picture of lavish spending on allowances for panellists and secretariat.
Also raising eyebrows is allocation for consultancy fees, equipment, security, workshops, litigation fees and training (or benchmarking as described in the budget).
Permanent feature “Employee suitability assessment before and in the course of employment shall henceforth be a continuous and permanent feature of the authority, and no one shall be exempted,” read ESA guideline in part, adding that members of the public will be invited through a general advert.
The agency plans to acquire the services of nine panellists who will pocket Sh30,000 daily for 220 days as sitting allowance totalling to Sh59.4 million. Panellists, appointed by the KRA board, will also pocket a further Sh20,000 per day totaling Sh9 million as travel allowance for some 50 days.
Each panel shall comprise five members, each chaired by a board member. Working hand-in-hand with the panellists will be 15 secretariat officials who will be nominated by the KRA board from serving staff. The move to vet employees has been fast-tracked following a dip in KRA’s performance.
The agency collected Sh1 trillion against a projection of Sh1.086 trillion in the 2014/15 financial year in what is said to be the slowest growth in the last decade. In the current financial year the agency is Sh28 billion off target thus prompting President Uhuru Kenyatta to demand for a lifestyle audit of all KRA staff.
Speaking during the 2015 National Taxpayers Day in Nairobi last month, Uhuru said to achieve optimum tax collection, corruption within KRA must stop and directed the National Treasury to work with the KRA Board to ensure speedy implementation of an appropriate staff vetting framework.
The ESA budget comes shortly after National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich announcement that the Government would cut back on non-crucial budget allocations in key State departments and freeze non-essential spending as part of austerity measures.
Non-priority expenditure include travel and purchases of furniture and computers but KRA plans to spend Sh100 million to buy scanners, printers and photocopiers for the purposes of the review. A further Sh30 million will be dedicated to computers and i-Pads while Sh10 million will be spent on new furniture for the process.
The budget further reveals Sh4.8 million will be used for air tickets for the panelists and secretarit staff. For the meetings, KRA will hire three different venues for a total of Sh13.2 million which will absorb another Sh5 million in what is referred to as ‘security’.
Under a category described as ‘consultancy’, the authority estimates plans to spend Sh100 million of taxpayer’s money for the services. A further Sh50 million is expected to be put aside for litigation services and another Sh30 million will also be set aside for payments in lieu of notice.
Per-diem for officers (for two days) will cost Sh5 million while airtime for each secretariat staff, estimated at the rate of Sh5,000 per day, will cost the agency Sh900,000 in 12 days. To make the exercise complete, the team will have a benchmarking training session which will cost taxpayers Sh5 million.
Advertisements will cost Sh10 million, a similar amount will go towards sensitisation campaigns for the process. From the total expenditure of Sh451,130,000, the agency proposes a 10 per cent contingency expense (Sh45 million) which brings the total expenditure to Sh496,243,000.
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