During the Turkish occupation of Greece, it was a patriotic obligation for Greeks to evade taxes. Under the British colonialization, the refrain among Americans was ‘no taxation without representation.’
The current situation in Kenya where our taxes are used to pay corrupt ministers is akin to the Greek and American situation in many ways.
One, it is the poor people who pay taxes in this country. MPs do not pay taxes to start with. They import their cars tax free to boot. The companies of the rich bribe KRA to evade taxes. Jua Kali artisans on Jogoo Road, who have been made deaf by molding scrap metals to be made into household goods sold to fellow paupers, are the one who pay taxes. Small scale business persons are sustaining our economy; the big dogs take all their catch to the bank.
Unfortunately, the taxes that the poor pay do not support effective health care or finance public schools for them. Government officials steal most of the money. Sam Ongeri and his gang pocketed FPE cash and took the remainder to his Kissii schools. Kibaki patted him on the back for a job well done and fired junior officials. How does a genuine tax payer feel? Disillusioned if not worse.
By the way who will tell Kibaki to shut up about the fight against corruption? He irritates my ears stiff. How can he blabber against corruption and go on to re-appoint the ministers we manage to haunt of their offices? This guy cannot convince a mad man. He should just sleep in State House till 2012. We demand nothing more from him. Not anymore. We have seen the much he can do. Thank you Sir!
Secondly, the taxes that jobless entrepreneurs pay are used to pay salaries of the employed sons and daughters of the wealthy elite to do nothing for us. If you are poor, however well educated, you don’t get employed. Your place is in the informal sector. Hawker, jua kali artisan, manamba, house girl, anything but not a decent job. Good jobs are the preserve of the rich. The children of the oligarchs get employed so that you toil in the sun to pay their salaries. The same fate awaits your children. It is hereditary.
Your taxes are even used to satisfy the sexual appetites of the political elite. They prostitute our sisters, girl friends and our wives with their ill gotten money. We pay for their luxury villas, limousines and holidays. Their businesses keep springing up. Open spaces are disappearing as they put up hotels and estates. We are pushed to the slums.
What should we do to curb this? Sabotage and lynching is the only antidote.
Mob justice is rampant in this country. We kill small thieves because we don’t trust our justice system. They will pay their way out. Instant justice has proved effective for small time thieves. It will also work for the fat thieves in big offices.
Extra-judicial killings are almost legal in Kenya. Police kill robbers and muggers everyday. Of course they don’t kill the rich who steal by the billions. They kill small thieves to protect the wealth of rich thieves. Isn’t time Wananchi take up the role of lynching the rich thieves?
Mungiki is a child of neglect, poverty and deprivation. Unfortunately they terrorize and extort from the poor. I wish they could play Robin Hood; steal from the rich thieves and used the proceeds to alleviate their own poverty. It will work like this, anybody suspected of corruption, say Ongeri and Ruto, their property be targeted for looting. Kidnap their kids and demand ransom. Bomb their buildings and burn their houses. That way the rich thieves will stop stealing from us.
At the height of apartheid, Winnie Mandela called for ‘neck lacing’ of traitors in Soweto. The same fate should befall the vampires sucking our blood. If one big thief is lynched, the rest will be deterred from stealing our hard earned money. If the rich thinks this won’t happen, then they are mistaken. Injustice and frustration beget the worst form of violence. Suicide bombers and martyrs are a product of injustice and repression. If the political elite think we are tame, they better know it won’t be forever.
We don’t trust this government to fight for us. State institutions have failed us completely. I once went to a house of an activist. He had labeled his toilet- ‘state house’, his dust bin -‘Kenya National Assembly’, and his pigsty -‘the High Court of Kenya’. Nothing can describe the rot in our institutions than this.
The day we stop worshipping thieves who steal from us, is the day Kenya will move forward. So far, we fight thieves by shouting and demonstrations. This has proved ineffective. It failed with Ongeri and Ruto. They have learned that we tire shouting after some time and we retreat to our misery. Even when it works, the Corruption High Priest in the hill returns them to the cabinet after awhile.
Big thieves beware! Soon, very soon, the army of the unemployed will be baying for your blood. In the meantime let us make evading taxes a national sport of the poor!
keep me posted once you start the militant group against corrupt ministers,am very interested.
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