Browsing: Kenya Railways

For years, steamers carrying goods and passengers were the main transport mode across Lake Victoria moving from one country to another and easing cross border trade. In its hey days, Lake Victoria had over five functional ports: Kisumu being the largest, Mwanza, Musoma and Bukoba in Tanzania, Entebbe, Jinja and Port Bell all in Uganda. There were other minor ports scattered across the area including Kendu Bay, Port Victoria, and Mbita Point which were mainly used by smaller boats. 

The lake was mainly used to move goods from one point to another, but also was instrumental in the growth of the fishing industry in East Africa. There were also international ferries operating clockwise and anticlockwise across the lake cities of the biggest lake in Africa, moving thousands of passengers every year. Initially, the ferries and ports were run under the East African Railways and Harbou…

The Kenyan government has now resorted to vetting of importers and exporters of consolidated cargo in the latest move to curb tax evasion.

This comes in the wake of recent piling of cargo at the Nairobi Inland Container Deport (ICD) as authorities opted for 100 per cent verification on containers with consolidated goods.

This is on suspicion of under-declaration and misdeclaration by traders in a tax evasion racket that has been denying the government revenues amounting to billions of shillings.

Rogue state officials have been accused of colluding with unscrupulous traders to facilitate false declarations, denying the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) requisite taxes, such as import duty, a move said to have led to a loss of over Ksh100 billion(US$987.8million) in the recent past.

They are also said to allow in counterfeits into the market and through the transit route into the hinterland in exchange for kickbacks.

The verification process …