Two Kenya Customs officials have been arrested for interrogation by EACC officials over their role in the attempted tax evasion plan of over 300kg of gold believed to be from DRC at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
The duo who will be guests of the state for a while, are supposed to be arraigned in court anytime this week.
At the centre of the scandal is a major Dubai gold dealer Empress Bullion Gold trading company and a number of foreign nationals from Dubai, The UK and The Democratic Republic of Congo.
The officials have been accused of colluding with clearing and forwarding agents and are suspected to have received thousands of dollars to process shipping documents without any money going to the government.
The officials have been handed over to the police to help unravel the identities of all the other parties involved.
This arrest comes in heels of an announcement by KRA in March that it was likely to miss it’s target for the year ending June 30th.
In 2022, President William Ruto challenged KRA to collect kshs 4 trillion and threatened to send top management packing if they failed to seal leaks in collection.
This has seen very tightened controls by the tax masters and it’s expected that with more than 1 million persons added this year to the taxpayers register the figures on taxes should drastically change.
