Mastermind Tobacco owner Wilfred Murungi.
Mastermind Tobacco is playing games with courts in order not to pay huge taxes that they owe the taxman. The Kenya revenue has in many occasions failed to hit tax collection targets coupled with corrupt KRA officials that collude with cartels to evade paying taxes.
Mastermind Tobacco, owned by business tycoon Wilfred Murungi owes the Kenya Revenue authority Ksh. 1.99 Billion that has never been paid.
Reacting to the reality that auctioneers are coming for them, Mastermind entered into a back-door deal and managed to convince some KRA officials through bribery that they would pay.
While appearing in court, the compromised KRA officials and mastermind lawyers told the compromised Judge Pauline Nyamweya that they had agreed to "negotiate" out of court.
Lady Justice Pauline Nyamweya always appears in court cases where corruption and bribery is involved. A few months ago, she made a cameo appearance in the Ruaraka Land Scam exposes, that we serialized.
Mastermind Tobacco sought court protection after KRA sent auctioneers to seize assets of the cigarette maker over the company’s failure to pay the tax arrears.
“The negotiations are ongoing and we request to come back for a mention on December 5, 2018 to record a consent or report on progress and extension of the orders,” lawyer Macharia, representing Mastermind, told the court, a position which the KRA’s counsel agreed with despite the huge taxes that may never be paid.
KRA has become notorious as many KRA officials cannot be able to explain the source of their wealth. Many businesses especially those run by the Chinese eg Oppo that we recently exposed have been evading taxes with no action since the senior KRA officials collect monthly bribes from the cartels.