On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 10:09 AM Barrack Otieno via KICTANet < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Many thanks Victor,
I think it's time for us to seriously consider manufacturing most of this devices locally. I hope the incoming government will consider this otherwise such moves will only widen the gap between the haves and the have not.
Regards
@Barrack Otieno <barrack@kictanet.or.ke> since we cannot manufacture electronics locally (should I make specific reference to mobile phones?) did you mean to say "assembling most of these devices locally"? Does the govt consider manufacturing and assembly to be synonymous? To the extent that the proposed taxes will not be levied on the locally assembled units? It is good to dream about being able to manufacture the devices locally one day, but I think that will be addressing a different issue than the one we have at hand - over-taxation! There's just something way off with our taxation regime that needs to be addressed. Industrialization should not be bundled together with that problem, IMHO. A SIM card going for KES50, with the additional KES50 for airtime is not something that will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The taxation regime itself is to blame for everything bedeviling us, our economy. Sealing the loopholes used by civil servants to steal from the govt will help address these taxation issues. For example, do you know that there are govt entities that spend KES 700,000 on letsencrypt certificates annually, yet the certificates are FREE? :-) -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-)