James Mburu’s Term Extended from 3 to 5 years as Commissioner General for KRA

Treasury CS Ukur Yatani has extended the KRA’s commissioner-general, General James Githii Mburu’s office term for two more years.

In a gazette notice published on Wednesday, Yatani prolonged the Kenya Revenue Authority boss term to five years from the previous three.

Officials say the taxman board met and approved the extension of the term for Mburu and all chief managers, deputy commissioners and commissioners to enhance their operations in office.

“The board felt three years are not enough to work effectively. Again, we are doing what regional countries have. Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda’s heads of revenue have their terms, which are similar hence, the need to change ours too,” said in a Standard reported.

Mburu was appointed in July 2019 after a competitive recruitment succeededing John Njiraini who had retired.

Previously, Mburu served as taxman’s commissioner for Intelligence and Strategic Operations that led to investigations that saw several KRA officials arrested for aiding tax evasion.

According to him, the taxman is enhancing automation and the use of technology to increase revenue collection and reduce human interaction that provides avenues for corruption.

In his one year of service, Mburu has implemented a performance management system that has apparently caused a lot of discomfort among some staff. Over 15 staff members have been sacked for failing to meet the required revenue.

KRA got an additional Sh10 billion budget allocation with an aim to boost identification and capture of wealthy tax cheats in what promises to be the biggest crackdown yet on high-net-worth individuals and firms.

The additional funds is to give the body more muscle to fight tax cheats, allowing it to acquire more equipment and hire more staff; especially enforcement and compliance workers.

The agency plans to hire 1,000 workers who will audit rich people’s sources of income against their tax remittance. Some will work on intelligence reports to seek recovery of unpaid taxes with the additional staff being given a target of raising billions of shillings in the new financial year.