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Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has proposed to be allocated a budget to facilitate destruction of condemned goods abandoned in holding facilities by owners due to the expensive nature of the exercise.

It said this creates opportunities for illegal and irregular diversion of goods into the local market. In a statement released yesterday, the taxman said owners of the condemned goods could barely meet the cost of destruction, which involved transportation, loading and off loading, destruction charges, charges from storage and shipping lines. The cost is borne by the owner of the goods or vessel.

It said overstaying of condemned goods is highly attributed to the costly and expensive destruction process.

“The continued presence of abandoned condemned goods at various holding facilities paves way for unscrupulous individuals to develop fraudulent schemes to illegally and irregularly divert the goods for personal gain without due regard to safety and health of Kenyans,” KRA added in the statement.

It said to address this challenge, it recommends the allocation of financial resources/ budget to itself in collaboration with a multi-agency team (MAT) force to facilitate timely destruction of goods.
The move KRA said will eliminate the need for private entities to finance the destruction process.