Kenya’s beneficial ownership law effective March 1, is opaque giving room for hiding of identities for resource plunder and tax avoidance, according to Tax Justice Network Africa. Kenya’s contribution to global financial secrecy worsened this year to position 24 globally from position 27 in 2018. Even so, Kenya’s beneficial ownership information is not shareable with other countries, making it difficult to pin down perpetrators of illicit financial flows. According to tax experts, the high financial secrecy in Africa undermines the continent’s development agenda, losing close to $1.4 trillion (Sh1148 trillion) to illicit financial flows between 1970 and 2015. ''This is made possible by the masterly exploitation of a system of interactions between multiple jurisdictions with varying degrees of financial secrecy, ‘ Markus Meinzer, director financial secrecy at Tax Justice Network said.

Source: The Star July 03, 2020 00:56 UTC