President William Ruto has accused some employees of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) of colluding with betting companies in the country to evade paying the required tax.

Speaking at the authority’s Times Tower Headquarters, President Ruto said some unnamed betting firms allegedly bribed some staff at KRA so that they don’t remit all the due taxes.

He further accused the said corrupt employees of the taxman of frustrating efforts to digitize tax collection through modern revenue administration technologies and create an efficient system to net more cash for the government.

The Head of State rooted for real-time collection of taxes from stakes by integrating systems between Safaricom, KRA and the betting companies instead of waiting until end month.


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“The people who do betting they pay staff at KRA, and you know they do. So that they don’t have to pay all the taxes that are due to the government of Kenya,” said President Ruto.

He added, “Let us integrate the system between KRA, Safaricom and betting companies, when somebody places a bet, the money for betting goes this way, the taxes go the other way, and we don’t have to have a meeting on the 20th of every month. We can finish that business instantly.”

The president said the current system of collecting taxes from betting firms is flawed and corruptible and that the new integrated system will cure that and net more taxes for KRA.


“I am not a member of KRA, are you telling that there aren’t; intelligent people in KRA who should have thought about that. Or they thought about it but instead of collecting taxes for the government of Kenya, they decided to collect money for themselves?

“My friends, you know what I am saying is true. Don’t you? And if you doubt, I can come and tell you who it is.”

He was speaking after filing his annual returns at Times Tower, where asked KRA to inspire confidence in Kenyans to pay their taxes by making their tax system simple, transparent and fair to be able collect more.

“You have to avoid irritating Kenyans with proposals to change names and tackle collusion and wanton bribe-taking that facilitate revenue leakages,” he urged.