The Computer Society of Kenya

Since 1986

Daily Nation By PAUL WAFULA

Wednesday, November 21  2012

KRAThe Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has asked an employee who innovated a system to help track property tax cheats — and which the authority is now seeking to procure from a third party — to resign and seek to supply the system as an outsider.

Addressing a real estate workshop organised by mortgage provider Housing Finance in Nairobi on Wednesday, KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini said he wants the organisation to concentrate on its core mandate.

“We are not in the business of trading with our staff. Such employees must do so from outside,” Mr Njiraini said. “Our approach in this respect is informed by the fact that KRA’s core business is tax collection and not the development and maintenance of property or other databases.”

The proposed budget for the new system is set at Sh1 billion.

This, even as the employee involved, Mr Samson Ngengi, moved to court for redress.

Mr Ngengi wants the taxman stopped from procuring such a system, and to be compensated.

The hearing for the preliminary orders is set for Thursday afternoon. The case promises to be a test case for innovators seeking redress from their employers over protection of their intellectual property.

However, the intrigues surrounding the innovation deepened further on Wednesday after Mr Njiraini seemed to contradict specifications given in an advert calling for supply bids, saying KRA is only looking for a database and not a computerised system.

“What KRA is seeking in the ongoing tender process is not a computerised system but a database,” Mr Njiraini said.

But according to the specifications of the tender — put out early this month — KRA said it “wishes to procure an automated solution to facilitate administration of tax on the real estate sector”.

“The desired solution shall have capability to link property ownership, development and physical location with available tax information and present it in an analytical format to facilitate tax compliance,” the notice inviting firms to express interest in provision of the system reads in part.

KRA did not explicitly indicate that it was looking for a database in the tender but it required firms willing to supply the system to have an “appropriate GIS solution with a geo-database for this purpose.” 

Mr Ngengi claims that this was the centre of his innovation that links property location, ownership and building details, as well as tax status of a taxpayer, as a single view in a computer application.

This, he claims, would give KRA an insight into how to get its pound of flesh from the lucrative real estate sector.

His innovation was named Geo-spatial Revenue Collection Information System (GEOCRIS), and won an international tax award on this basis.

The case is also expected to give an insight into what employees who go beyond the call of duty should expect from their employer. 

The taxman is counting on the system to help it go after landlords and property developers as part of its efforts to bring the lucrative real estate sector under the tax bracket.  

If the innovator has its way and stops the taxman, that would deal it a major blow, coming at a time when KRA is under pressure to meet the ambitious Sh1 trillion tax revenue target set by the government this year.

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