The intrigues behind Uhuru’s move to drop top KRA bosses

On Tuesday morning, the board of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) held a special meeting and decided to send Commissioner-General John Njiraini on terminal leave pending his retirement.

The meeting, which had not been scheduled, is believed to have been instigated by a top ranking government official. The board’s deliberations spilled over to Wednesday, its main agenda being hiring of Mr Njiraini’s replacement.  

The Nation has pieced together events between Tuesday and Friday when President Uhuru Kenyatta replaced five of the nine KRA board members, among them the chairman, Dr Edward Sambili, through a Special Gazette notice. Besides Dr Sambili, the other board members who were kicked out were Mr Evans Kakai, Ms Constance Kandie, Mr Rashid Ali and Mr Abdi Barre Duale, who was given a soft landing by being named chairman of the Kenya Leather Development Council.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Mr Njiraini is reported to have accepted the board’s decision to retire him and was due to start his terminal leave on Wednesday next week.  However, he is said to have pleaded with the board to allow him to forego his accumulated leave days to complete some of the projects he had initiated as the board looked for a new Commissioner-General.

TWO-MONTH EXTENSION

Sources familiar with the issue said the board agreed with him and allowed him a two-month extension and initiated the process of recruiting his replacement by preparing an advertisement to run in newspapers.

Mr Njiraini continued with his normal duties and, on Friday morning, he presented a report on The Income Tax Bill (2018) before the National Assembly’s Public Investments Committee. On the same day, the unexpected happened. President Kenyatta, through the Special Gazette notice, sent the chairman and four board members home in a move that confounded the board and others who thought that Mr Njiraini’s fate had been sealed. 

Sources in government told the Nation that some board members had been under investigation for various transgressions including doing business with KRA, impeding tax collection by protecting firms that owed the authority money and undermining management efforts to collect money owed to the State.

“Some of them were engaged in import businesses and were also working with cartels to avoid paying taxes,” said the source who cannot be named discussing intelligence matters. “You can trust Mr Muthaura to deliver at KRA ... that’s the sort of person the President needs as he fights cartels tainting his government’s image through corruption.”

DRASTIC CHANGES

The official said that just like KRA, other key parastatals are likely to witness drastic changes in the coming days. National Treasury CS Henry Rotich and PS Kamau Thugge did not immediately respond to our inquiries about these proposed changes.

In the last few months, the KRA board has been divided on how to treat a company that claims to have imported sugar tax free but from which KRA is demanding nearly Sh2.6 billion in tax. The case by Darasa Investments is pending before the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal overturned a decision by the High Court to allow the sugar into the country tax free.

Instructively, the appointment of Mr Muthaura, the former Head of Public Service, to replace Dr Sambili took effect on May 20, which means the board’s decision to send Mr Njiraini home, which was taken on May 22, has no effect because Dr Sambili had already been fired.

The appointment of Mr Charles Omanga, Mr Mukesh Shah, Mr Leonard Ithau, and Mrs Susan Mudhune to replace the four retired commissioners takes effect from May 30.

In appointing the four, President Kenyatta ignored the KRA Act which states that the President appoints only the chairman of the board while the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury appoints board members.

CUT-THROAT COMPETITION

Mr Francis Muthaura’s board will be confronted by cut-throat competition by candidates seeking to succeed Mr Njiraini. The competition is between the Commissioner for Intelligence and Strategic Operations, Mr James Githii Mburu, and the Commissioner in charge of Investigation and Enforcement, Mr David Kiprop Sirikwa Yego.

The previous board was said to favour Mr Yego while some power brokers and influence peddlers prefer Mr Mburu.

The reconstitution of the board comes as Mr Njiraini is fighting a suit in court challenging his continued stay in office.

The suit was filed by activist Okiya Omtata last December and Justice Nelson Abuodha is set to issue judgment on June 22. In the suit papers, Mr Omtata says that Mr Njiraini should proceed on terminal leave because he has attained both the retirement age of 60 and has also exhausted his two terms.

As the case was going on, a circular from the Head of Public Service, Mr Joseph Kinyua, scrapped the age and term limits, allowing top civil servants to work beyond the mandatory retirement age.

TWO TERMS

The circular also said the CEOs can serve more than two terms. Mr Omtata has also challenged that circular and Justice Abuodha is set to rule on the two matters.  The judge had stated that in case Mr Njiraini loses the case he (Mr Njiraini) will return all emoluments he will have been paid in the period that he was in office.

Meanwhile, in the Special Gazette notice published on Friday, President Kenyatta appointed veteran wildlife conservation scientist John Waithaka chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service board for three years, replacing Dr Richard Leakey.

Until last year, Mr Waithaka, a former KWS deputy director, was a conservation biologist with the Canada National Parks, a position he took in 2013.

LEADERSHIP CRISES

The University of Nairobi-trained botanist and zoologist is also the current vice-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)/World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) for the East and Southern Africa Region.

He takes over the leadership of KWS at a time when the organisation and the sector is steeped in deep financial and leadership crises since Dr Leakey was re-appointed board chair in 2013. Among the headaches Mr Waithaka inherits include stabilisation of the KWS leadership where all senior positions are currently held in acting capacity following the acrimonious departure of Director-General Kitili Mbathi two years ago. Mr Mbathi is yet to be replaced.