INTERNATIONAL – Kenya’s earnings from tourism jumped by almost a third in 2018 from the previous year to 157.4 billion shillings ($1.55 billion), after the number of visitors rose by 37 percent, the tourism ministry said on Monday.
Just recently, the country also cut its revenue target for this fiscal year by 5 percent to 1.61 trillion shillings (R222bn), the second year in a row the East African nation is revising its tax goal downward.
The Kenya Revenue Authority initially sought to raise 1.69 trillion shillings in the year through June 2019, Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich said in a notice in the official gazette. It collected 1.37 trillion shillings in the previous period, missing a twice-lowered target of 1.415 trillion shillings.
Factors such as bleak corporate earnings and job cuts “collectively mean the overall economic activity gets cut, thus net collections are projected downward,” said Deepak Dave, founder of Nairobi-based Riverside Capital Advisory.