The Political Economy of Post-Colonial Taxation in Kenya, 1973 -1995

The Kenyan tax system as we find today is a British colonial legacy that was closely bound up with the development of the system of political governance and the maintenance of law and order. Besides, taxation helped transform a subsistence economy into one where money and a market system determined the exchange process. In short, the introduction of taxation changed the mode of exchange and the entire fabric of African society and reordered it to meet the needs of a capitalist economy. Independence in 1963 did not alter the parasitic nature of the colonial state. Subtle and opportunistic ways continued to be used to extract taxes from the peasants and the working class. GPT impoverished the poorest members of society who had no definite source of income. In 1973, after slightly more ten years of implementation, GPT was abolished altogether as a source of revenue for both the central and local government. It had been a brusque form of direct taxation on Africans. The abolition released the non-salaried from the payment of taxes, which basically was more burdensome to the poor than to the rich. But for those in paid employment, there was introduced a new form of ‘pay-as-you-earn’ (PAYE) system that taxed an individual’s income according to how much one earned.

Biography of Samwel Onyango Ayodo, 1930-1998

The late Samwel Onyango Ayodo former Member of Parliament for Kasipul-Kabondo Constituency and one time the first Member of Parliament for the entire South Nyanza in the Colonial Legislative Council made important contribution in the development and politics of Kenya before and after independence. However his contribution to Kenyan history has been overshadowed by the history of leaders whose political career influences the political direction of Kenya. The only area that has been studied with regards to Ayodo is his unpublished B.A dissertation on his 1969 election entitled “Ayodo Election 1969” which has not given a critical work on Ayodo’s  political career up to 1983,his role in development and his retirement from politics, this was the need for the present study. The purpose of the study was to establish the extent of Ayodo’s contribution to nation building in Kenya while he was a member of parliament and a minister. The broad objective was to find out Ayodo’s role in nation building, specific objectives were to explore Ayodo’s early life, to examine Ayodo’s political career as a Member of Parliament and minister and his life in retirement from active politics. Literature review involved the review of various biographies of Kenya and some selected outside Kenya that related to this study. The study applied the theory of Great Man by Thomas Carlyle which shows the role of great individuals in history making in order to demonstrate how Ayodo was a great personality with regards to his political career, his role in land consolidation programme, the establishment of Lambwe valley game reserve and unity of the Luo community. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Archival and oral sources were important in generating data on Ayodo. Purposive sampling especially snowball technique was used to identify interviewees. Analysis and interpretation of data employed the historical method. The study findings filled a knowledge gap about Ayodo’s early life, his political career as well as his life after retiring from politics. Keywords: Colonial Legislative Council, political career, Luo, Kasipul-Kabondo, Member of Parliamen

A history of the direct taxation of the African people of Kenya, 1895-1973

This study examines the origin, the manifestation and impact of the direct taxation of Africans in Kenya. While the state had several reasons for imposing taxation on Africans, the basic factor weighed on the need for a definitive source of revenue. For most of the colonial period, this aggregated to about 37½ percent of the total revenues. The thesis shows how taxes were collected from Africans, how this led to participation in the cash economy and how they continually resisted and evaded such taxation. Tax collection was synonymous with colonialism and this was manifested through the central role of chiefs, who used taxes and force to coerce Africans into migrant wage labour. Through taxation policies, legislation and African resourcefulness, migrant wage labour served the needs of a colonial capitalist settler economy. In this way, the colonial state revealed its capacity for dominance, power and exploitation. Evidence has been adduced to show that African taxation was an important factor in Kenya’s administrative, political and economic development. The policy of African taxation, land loss and poor working conditions are remembered as having interfered with African mechanisms for accumulating wealth. One of the main objections of the payment of taxes was the manner of its collection. Those unable to pay were imprisoned or detained while many took to instant flight at the sight of the tax collector. The thesis shows that in spite of all these harsh tax collection methods, peasants remained largely resilient and industrious. The Mau Mau movement was the culmination of various peasant grievances in which the colonial state used steep taxation as a counter-insurgency measure. Kenya’s independence in 1963, however, never altered the predatory nature of the state. Subtle, opportunistic and overt ways continued to be used to extract taxes from the peasants and the working class. It was not until 1973 that the much-hated colonial poll tax that had been renamed as graduated poll tax was abolished and replaced by indirect taxation. Finally, taxation like other colonial legacies has endured and has become one of the most important sources of revenue for the government to manage its fiscal policies

Taxation, migration and the creation of a working class in Kenya

Various scholars have questioned the often-stated migrant labour–taxation causal nexus. They have rejected the overworked stereotype that Africans entered labour service to pay taxes, obtain more livestock and marry more wives. This paper argues that migration was a historical aspect of social change, because migrant labourers made deliberate economic choices on whether to pay taxes either by exploiting available resources or by migrating. Particular analysis is made of the extent to which taxation engendered the creation of a working class cadre. The case of the settler economies of South Africa, Rhodesia, Algeria and Kenya in particular revolved around the transition of the rural population from a pastoral and cultivator economy to a truncated working class in the Thompsonian paradigm. They were not merely, as Atieno-Odhiambo declares, ‘cogs in the wheel of capitalism'. Among other reasons, Africans went out in search of paid work for the fact that force was used when their livestock were confiscated unless they left to perform wage labour. Many others went out in search of employment for the independence and self-sufficiency it gave them. The paper argues that a number of young people went out voluntarily to obtain money which they used to pay taxes but also to acquire certain material possessions such as livestock, blankets, clothes and other paraphernalia, and to become entrepreneurs. As a consequence of all these, we have the emergence of a working class cadre that has become an important life trajectory in Kenya. Africa Development Vol. 30(4) 2005: 121–13