{"id":139200,"date":"2025-11-18T04:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T04:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/139200\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T04:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T04:47:16","slug":"how-cartels-in-kenya-are-bringing-about-extra-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/139200\/","title":{"rendered":"How cartels in Kenya are bringing about extra taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        The report by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Commission (CCC) revealed that both Nairobi and Tanzania\u2019s commercial hub, Dar es Salaam, at the time boasted some of the highest maize costs in the East African region.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        This situation was a direct consequence of cartel activities, which led to the imposition of excessively high profit margins by dominant traders and the prevalence of anti-competitive market practices.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Consequently, Kenyan consumers have been grappling with the escalating expenses of essential food items, such as cooking oil and fertilizer.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Very recently, the damage cartels are causing to the Kenyan economy resurfaced as David Kemei, Director-General, Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK), disclosed that Kenyans are now faced with an invisible tax.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        A cartel group, which simply refers to independent bodies that secretly or formally work together to control prices, limit competition, or manipulate the market for their own benefit, has, in every sense of the definition, affected the Kenyan market.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        As reported by the <a href=\"https:\/\/kenyanwallstreet.com\/cartels-are-the-invisible-tax-on-consumers-competition-authority-director-general\" id=\"e6aca34b-47db-412c-9579-0d49062ebde5\" data-link-role-code=\"open_new_tab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kenyan Wall Street<\/a>, without the pressure of competition, cartel groups in Kenya have little incentive to innovate and or develop their products, services, or processes.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        \u201cThe truth is that cartels remain pervasive in our economy. We concede that more needs to be done to address this challenge,\u201d the CAK stated.\n    <\/p>\n<p>        How Kenya is fighting the cartel <\/p>\n<p>\n        The CAK is assigned the responsibility of looking into and sanctioning cartels.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The Competition Act allows the CAK to levy an administrative fine in Kenya of up to 10% of the total annual turnover of a liable firm in the previous year. Criminal charges may also be brought against those proven guilty.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The CAK fined many steel producers more than KSh 338 million in August 2023 for engaging in cartel activity, which included setting prices, modifying prices, and agreeing to restrict imports of specific materials.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The government&#8217;s affordable housing strategy may be undermined by such methods, which might raise the cost of building homes and infrastructure projects.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        \u201cOne of the tools through which we gather intelligence is by offering leniency to cartel participants who voluntarily disclose a cartel and cooperate with the investigation,\u201d the CAK stated.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        \u201cSubject to various conditions, such parties receive reduced fines or full pardon. Additionally, if you are aware of a cartel conduct, but are not a participant in it, you can report to the matter to the CAK.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The report by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Commission (CCC) revealed that both&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-139200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}