KRA will not reopen Keroche until they settle tax arrears

The Naivasha-based brewer was shut down on May 15, 2022, after defaulting on an earlier agreed plan to repay the money owed to the tax man in instalments. 

KRA Commissioner General Githii Mburu, in an interview with Business Daily, said that Keroche has not honoured an agreement they had inked in the payment plan.

He said the agreement allowed the taxman to take an enforced action in case of a breach in payment.

"We also agreed they will remain up to date on current taxes so that when they sell, they will be remitting thee dues. When they paid the initial payment and we reopened their facility, we waited for them to honour the payments but that did not happen," said Mburu.

"The Taxpayer did not honour the payment plan agreed upon for the third time...to allow a tax-evading business to continue operating despite it dishonouring all payment plans is to promote a culture of impunity, promote unfairness and allow a few to use public funds to enrich themselves."

Keroche CEO Tabitha Karanja has since claimed that the company signed the tax repayment agreement through duress, adding that harsh economic times had affected their operations.

She accused KRA of behaving in a manner that was scandalously oblivious of the need for business resilience to overcome a combination of challenges.

Karanja further revealed that Keroche will send home 400 workers owing to the closure.

“I was thinking aloud on Sunday afternoon and pondering how I will relay the painful message to our employees on Monday that we will be laying them off as a result of KRA's closure. 

The company is on the verge of laying off over 400 employees due to the illegal, punitive and draconian actions by the KRA," she wrote on Twitter.

She is now appealing to KRA to give the company a moratorium on the enforcement action that shut down their operations and a review of the unsustainable payment plan.