This country is in a crisis, and there seems to be no easy solution in sight. Here are the hard truths we need to confront:
1. Revenue and Economy: Less than 2.5M people pay direct taxes. A good chunk of these taxpayers are govt employees, esp teachers, police, and medical workers. In short, our economy mostly depends on govt expenditure. When it was suggested that farmers too would be paying tax on produce, they all came out gun-blazing. Shop owners and businessmen are now hiding till numbers to erase any evidence they could be making sales/profits. In short, nobody wants to pay. The govt has now resorted to desperate measures to raise revenue. Remember the target is to raise from 14% of GDP to 22% by 2028. As ludicrous as it may sound, the idea of taxing the air we breathe is no longer a joke. the reality is that the govt is running out of options.
2. Expenditure: Some of you may argue that govt is on a wasting spree. But look at the absolute numbers. The Ministry of Education, for example, was allocated Sh628.6 billion, equivalent to 27.4 percent of this yr's entire budget. Despite that amount, it was still not sufficient to even employ the JSS teachers on a permanent basis- the reason they were on strike. The govt has already terminated their contracts, coz no money to employ them anyway. A kin in one of the colleges told me more than 6k students were recently admitted to their school. Classes and teaching staff are so few that some have to be attended at 7-8 PM, na sio module 2. Si hata mnaona hiyo thread by @wrongturn where a small university with no facilities is admitting 16k students? I won't even mention high schools, because it is chaos. In short, The billions are just a drop in the ocean compared to what is actually needed. And this can be replicated in most of the core departments. ni vile there is direct way to measure how strained these resources are compared to the people they are allocated to.
Maswali:
Is our GDP overstated?
What would you suggest to expand the tax base without sounding ridiculous- like what the govt is currently trying to do?
Is it time to say enough is enough and forcefully implement family planning, coz this population will continue to grow at a faster rate, na ata wakimalisa shule akuna kazi zao.
Ahsande
1. Revenue and Economy: Less than 2.5M people pay direct taxes. A good chunk of these taxpayers are govt employees, esp teachers, police, and medical workers. In short, our economy mostly depends on govt expenditure. When it was suggested that farmers too would be paying tax on produce, they all came out gun-blazing. Shop owners and businessmen are now hiding till numbers to erase any evidence they could be making sales/profits. In short, nobody wants to pay. The govt has now resorted to desperate measures to raise revenue. Remember the target is to raise from 14% of GDP to 22% by 2028. As ludicrous as it may sound, the idea of taxing the air we breathe is no longer a joke. the reality is that the govt is running out of options.
2. Expenditure: Some of you may argue that govt is on a wasting spree. But look at the absolute numbers. The Ministry of Education, for example, was allocated Sh628.6 billion, equivalent to 27.4 percent of this yr's entire budget. Despite that amount, it was still not sufficient to even employ the JSS teachers on a permanent basis- the reason they were on strike. The govt has already terminated their contracts, coz no money to employ them anyway. A kin in one of the colleges told me more than 6k students were recently admitted to their school. Classes and teaching staff are so few that some have to be attended at 7-8 PM, na sio module 2. Si hata mnaona hiyo thread by @wrongturn where a small university with no facilities is admitting 16k students? I won't even mention high schools, because it is chaos. In short, The billions are just a drop in the ocean compared to what is actually needed. And this can be replicated in most of the core departments. ni vile there is direct way to measure how strained these resources are compared to the people they are allocated to.
Maswali:
Is our GDP overstated?
What would you suggest to expand the tax base without sounding ridiculous- like what the govt is currently trying to do?
Is it time to say enough is enough and forcefully implement family planning, coz this population will continue to grow at a faster rate, na ata wakimalisa shule akuna kazi zao.
Ahsande
