Opposition leader Raila Odinga has finally broken the silence on claims that he received bribe from the British American Tobacco (BAT) to take action on Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) during his tenure as prime minister.
Speaking during a TV interview with KTN’s Joe Ageyo on the night of Wednesday January 7, 2015, Raila said that he only requested KRA to act on the BAT case, and that he did not order them, although he had powers to do so.
The former prime minister also noted that BAT only approached his office just like many other companies.
“A number of companies used to come to the office of the prime minister when they were in problems. Like a company would come and say that they were being targetted by the revenue authorities which is working in the interest of their competitor. It is the work of the Prime Minister to investigate,” he said.
BAT allegedly had planned to drive their rival Mastermind out of business with a plan that included bribing tax officials to disclose confidential information and paying the rival’s officials to disclose vital corporate secrets.
Raila then allegedly stepped into the situation to intervene.
“When the KRA wrote to Mastermind’s bankers threatening to freeze accounts until the outstanding amounts were paid, officials in the office of former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga stepped in and ordered them to suspend the demands,” Hopkins told the newspaper The Independent about the issue.
The KRA had been threatening to freeze Mastermind’s bank accounts over the company’s alleged failure to pay taxes worth billions of shillings.
Paul Hopkins, who worked as an employee for BAT in Africa for thirteen years, also revealed that he made a KSh 7.6 million donation to 2013 Narc-Kenya presidential candidate Martha Karua.
Karua has admitted receiving about KSh 2 million from Hopkins saying that she thought it was a donation on a personal capacity and not a bribe from BAT.
0 comments:
Post a Comment