BY
Tom Odhiambo
The government of Kenya (GoK) seems very determined to plug the debt hole that it has dug itself into in the recent past. Balancing its budget seems to be so taxing that it has decided it might as well tax Kenyans out of water and off the fire, in a manner of speaking.
The government is convinced that since Kenyans have to drink water – or bathe and cook with it – and since they must eat – and so cook their food – it shall seek to share with them the money they use for buying water and energy for cooking.
GoK has been entertaining proposals to levy more taxes on water but has gone ahead to simply overtax cooking gas.
Indeed, those who cite tax as one of the certainties of life make a very important point. But it seems as if the Kenyan taxpayer has to literally pay for every little item they use in life. Undoubtedly water and gas or paraffin are essential commodities in millions of households in this country.
This makes them a sure source of tax income for the taxman – it is near impossible to avoid using water at all and in one way or another, a modern household will have to cook, using paraffin or cooking gas. In fact, kerosene is also used for lighting by millions of Kenyans who can’t afford electricity or solar power or any other means of lighting their homes.
Well, the government may claim that it needs more money in order to deliver potable water or to get electricity connected to Kenyans. But does it have to impose more taxes on water and paraffin, for instance, whilst lowering taxes on, say, solar power products?
No. it doesn’t. Isn’t water basic to human survival? It is used in nearly all every manufacturing process. The claim that water is life needs no proof. Water scarcity is now a source of serious human conflicts all over the world.
East Africans need not look farther than the dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Ethiopia, which the Egyptians claim will affect the lives of millions of its citizens.
Thus, it does not matter the socio-economic class of a Kenyan, she or he needs water, in abundance, every day. But what is hardly reported in the media is that poor Kenyans pay more for water than those who are well-off.
They just don’t pay more in the real cost, thus more taxation; they may pay more in terms of the cost to their life of using unsafe water.
How? Because potable water is expensive, they may resort to use cheaper water whose source they may not know – could be untreated borehole water or water from polluted rivers. This double jeopardy is directly related to the impact that extra taxation on water has on its costing, sourcing, distribution and use.
But probably what is more important for the ordinary and often economically struggling citizens is the fact that lack of water is a life and death situation for a majority of them. Little or no water could lead to drought, poor crop harvests, starvation, and death.
Taxing water increases the cost of producing and distributing food, which negatively impacts the livelihoods of millions of rural and urban poor.
Yet, the government has sworn to protect the basic rights of its citizens. Water is, therefore, an important human rights issue.
Why would any government wish to ignore a basic right that the United Nations General Assembly acknowledged in its Resolution 64/292, which noted the significance of water and sanitation in realizing all the other human rights?
Without clean drinking water, which can also be used for cooking, bathing, washing and such other human needs, we cannot even begin to talk about any other human right.
As for the imposition of more taxes on paraffin and cooking gas, the government, again, ignored the fact that it was taxing many Kenyans who are struggling to make ends meet.
Cooking gas is primarily less a polluter than firewood or charcoal. It is also used by thousands of middle or aspiring middle class Kenyans. These working Kenyans economically support millions of poorer fellow citizens, relatives, friends, and colleagues.
Taking more money out of their pockets harms those who depend on them. It also pushes them to consider using alternative sources of energy – in this case charcoal and firewood become the immediate substitutes.
How can a government that has declared its intention to go ‘green’ tax more a product that is integral to its green economy agenda? Shouldn’t the government of Kenya be subsidizing the delivery and use of cooking gas?
Shouldn’t the government be encouraging home builders to set up cooking gas storage facilities in new housing blocks as well as distribute it to all units within the block?
Considering that the cost of cooking using electricity is still prohibitive in this country, shouldn’t the government relax taxes and taxation of the clean cooking gas?
The tragedy of having extra taxes on paraffin is that it has a direct impact on the quality of life of millions of Kenyans who use it for cooking and lighting. Millions of households light their homes using kerosene. Such families have no money to buy candles or solar energy products or gas for lighting.
These families count among most poorer Kenyans, mostly living in the countryside and in the underprivileged neighborhoods of their urban centers. For such families, they can only resort to using firewood for lighting when they can’t afford kerosene or gas.
What to do? All Kenyans, but especially the civil society, should push for the government of Kenya to acknowledge that water is a basic human right, which impacts the enjoyment of all other rights. Water should be free, especially where the citizens are too poor and don’t use much of it.
Or at the least, if it must be taxed, such tax should be negligible and mostly meant to be used to maintain the facilities that ensure the water is collected, treated, and distributed to its users.
As for cooking gas, the government needs to exploit the potential opportunities for getting local cooking gas, packaging, and distributing it to buyers. Also, concerned parties should look for a resolution that is sensible to all of us, The writer teaches at the university of Nairobi. Tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke
