The Kenya Revenue Authority has refused to reopen Keroche Breweries despite a court order that authorized for the reopening of the Naivasha based breweries.
According to Keroche chief executive officer Tabitha Karanja, the KRA has refused to reopen the breweries despite failing to get orders in court to keep the brewer closed.
“The court ordered KRA to unseal our packaging line, our stores and to reactivate the Exercisable Goods Management System (EGMS) at our BREWERY and to generally allow us to carry on business forthwith,” said Ms. Karanja.
“Notwithstanding the the court order, the Kenya Revenue Authority has refused and declined to open our brewery.”
Ms. Karanja said that her business has every intention to repay the outstanding taxes owed to the KRA, but called for fairness in the manner KRA has been handling their dispute.
“We have every intention to pay the taxes that we have admitted, provided that we are allowed to carry on business in order to generate the profits that would in good time allow us to fully repay taxes owing,” she said.
“Our enterprise as a company is more than 30 times the amount of the taxes that we owe the KRA. But the unfortunate circumstances we are experiencing have ensured that we are not able to break even in the short period that we have been allowed to do business.”
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Days after the Milimani Commercial Court ordered for the reopening of Keroche Breweries, the Kenya Revenue Authority rushed back to court to get orders to shut down Keroche yet again.
“The Kenya Revenue Authority has today 18th July 2022 moved the High Court to vacate and set aside an order issued on 15th July 2022 in HCCC NO. E250 OF 2022 Keroche Breweries Limited vs Kenya Revenue Authority, which directed the reopening of Keroche,” KRA said in a statement.