Narok Senator Ledama Ole Kina on Monday morning advised Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi to deploy a raft of measures to revive the economy and expand the tax bracket for maximum returns.
Speaking as a panelist on Citizen TV, the senator cautioned the CS to tread carefully in the Ministry of Treasury while working to revive the economy.
While acknowledging that President William Ruto had the power to appoint anyone to serve in his Cabinet, the senator noted it is too early to tell whether the new cabinet secretaries will offer lasting solutions during their tenures.
“President Ruto had the prerogative of choosing who to serve in his Cabinet. I heard the Treasury CS Mbadi say they will reduce taxes and resubmit the Finance Bill while considering the issues raised by Gen Zs,” he stated.
Senator Ledama Olekina during an interview with Kenyans.co.ke.
Ian Kaniu
Ledama also unloaded a pack of wisdom to CS Mbadi on how to tame the economic woes facing the economy.
“What CS Mbadi should do is to be able to figure out what the best strategy to improve the economy is. If you have more businesses and are charging less taxes, there will be more businesses coming up and you can be able to collect more taxes,” he divined.
The ODM-elected senator further challenged the CS to look into the causes contributing to investors fleeing from the country and make necessary adjustments.
“I think he should be able to go back and say, ‘What is sending away investors out of this country? Why are so many businesses closing down?’ It is because the taxes are unbearable. So when you reduce the taxes, you encourage a lot of businesses to thrive, and in so doing you broaden the tax base,” he noted
The Narok Senator criticised the government for raising taxes as a way of improving taxes. In his argument, he noted that raising taxes only suppresses businesses counterintuitively leading to lower taxes.
“You do not raise more money by increasing taxes. On the contrary, you raise more taxes by lowering taxes and encouraging businesses to thrive,” he noted.
Ledama, as a result, urged Mbadi to sit down with Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u and deliberate on better ways to revive the economy.
Former Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u in his office.
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Njuguna Ndung’u
