Manufacturers in the soft drink and bottling industry have accused KRA of doing little to enlighten them about the new excise duty tax management system.
The new excise duty that was introduced more than a month ago, was rolled out amidst challenges in affixing the tax stamps.
Kenya Revenue Authority hopes to gain more than 4 Billion in taxes from the new scheme.
The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) has said that it will continue to engage KRA to address the technical hitches.
KAM chief executive Phyllis Wakiaga said there was still confusion in the market without proper sensitization that products without stamps can still be sold until the January 30 deadline set by KRA.
“Since the implementation of EGMS, manufacturers have been facing challenges including high rejections by KRA printers, the low turnaround time for uploading stock-keeping units (SKUs) at KRA, and delays by SICPA to fix any installation issue resulting in a slowdown in production,” she said. “We hope that they will address the technical challenges that the sector is facing in implementing EGMS, which aims to address issues of counterfeits in the sector”.
A spot check by the Business Daily revealed the scheme, that only a handful of brands had the excise stamps in the retail stores within the city centre while in the small retailers located in off town areas, the stamps were almost non-existent. Roadside sellers of drinking water in Nairobi said they were not aware of the stamps.
