The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has unearthed a tax evasion scheme where forged documents are being used to facilitate foreign-registered vehicles to operate in Kenya without paying requisite taxes.
KRA investigations established that culprits use false payment slips to facilitate the clearance of foreign-registered motor vehicles, thus evading payment of transit road toll fees.
In a recent incident, KRA officers established that a clearing agent appointed by Pwani Hauliers Limited to facilitate movement of their trucks from Tanzania into and out of Kenya through Lunga Lunga
One-Stop Border Post (OSBP). The agent had been provided with funds to pay requisite duties but he forged payment slips and presented them to KRA as genuine.
The clearing agent, Geoffrey Onyancha Otara (pictured), was later arrested and arraigned at the Kwale Law Courts on April 29, 2021.
Otara was charged jointly with others for unlawfully presenting false documents, namely F147, to the Commissioner of Customs and Border Control (CCBC) which he knew or ought to have known to be false.
He also faced a second count of conspiring with others not before the court to unlawfully use a false document to evade taxes, in contravention of the East African Community Customs Management Act, 2004 (EACCMA).
Otara, a representative of an exporter Pwani Haulier Ltd committed the crime on March 22 this year at Lunga Lunga OSBP in Kwale County.
He denied charges before Kwale Resident Magistrate Hon. Christine Auka and was released on a Ksh.70,000 bond with an alternative of Ksh.40,000 bail as he awaits mentioning on May 13, 2021.
This article is attributed to Commissioner, Investigation and Enforcement Department- Dr. Edward Karanja
