Governors shocked, outraged by threats to revoke levies

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU

Kenya: The National Treasury cannot revoke laws constitutionally approved by the county assemblies, the chairman of the Finance Committee in the Council of Governors, Ahmed Abdullahi, said Tuesday.

Responding to the Treasury and Senate’s Committee on Finance, Commerce and Economic Affairs’ calls for revocation of county government taxes that have sparked uproar across the country, Mr Abdullahi accused the senators of overstepping their mandate.

“The senators are overstepping their mandate… this has to do with the little matter of the summons (to governors to appear before the Senate’s Finance, Commerce and Economic Affairs Committee),” said Mr Abdullahi of Wajir County late last night by telephone.

The Wajir Governor added: “Legislations can be questioned. When MPs passed the VAT (Value Added Tax) law, Kenyans didn’t like it. But did the Treasury revoke it? A blanket condemnation of all the laws passed by the county governments is wrong. The Senate is overstepping its mandate”.

“After proposals by the governors, the taxes are discussed by members of the county assemblies. Only governors and MCAs can review the taxes. Do senators want to render county assemblies irrelevant?”

Mr Abdullahi said it was ironical that the senators wanted to seal the avenues that governors had identified to bridge budget shortfalls that arose after Parliament voted less funds for counties.

The Senate, he added, had approved the Division of Revenue Bill that allocated Sh210 billion to counties instead of the Sh268 billion governors had requested.

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua dismissed the Senate committee’s declaration about the taxation laws in the counties.

“They have no powers to revoke the (Finance) Acts (in the counties). There’s a process that has to be followed. There’s a Constitution in place,” Mutua told The Standard via telephone last evening.

More absurd

Conrad Bosire, an expert with grounding in laws around devolution, also echoed Governor Mutua’s comments that neither the Senate nor National Treasury had powers to revoke the laws.

“As a principle, county legislation can only be challenged in court and declared unconstitutional. It is even more absurd that they are attempting a blanket revocation of all Finance Bills passed by the 47 county governments,” said Dr Bosire.

Bosire noted that the provisions of Article 191(2)(b), which gives the national legislation supremacy over county legislation, was very specific that it was all about “national laws not executive orders from the National Treasury”.

“I know the point of contention is the illegal taxes that counties have imposed in their Finance Bills but the way to do it is to either challenge the Bills in court or have the Controller of Budget prohibit the administration of the illegal taxes.

“The other option is for the National Treasury to withhold monies due to a county charging illegal taxes until the anomalies are corrected but that is subject to the procedure in the PFMA.

“Only half the money due can be withheld and both houses have to approve this,” Bosire told The Standard in an email.