By Wanja Waweru
NCBA Managing Director John Gachora has said the merger of NIC Group PLC and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) in 2019 resulted in a tax relief worth Ksh.350 million.
“I want to assure the public and every Kenyan that should the court find that NCBA was not entitled to that waiver, the day the court makes that determination, I can promise that the following day we will send a cheque of Ksh. 350 million to the exchequer,” Gachora told KTN News on Thursday night.
The MD cited the banks’ history in meeting its tax obligations saying that the Ksh. 350 million was only but a fraction of billions of shillings the lender had been paying to the tax man annually.
“People need to understand that the waiver was given to the NCBA or the merging parties. With 26,000 shareholders behind the banks that were merging. In the same year that we got the waiver of Ksh.350 million we paid total taxes of Ksh.4.4 billion the same year, more than 10 times the waiver the people are talking about,” he said.
Gachora, however, asserts that should the court determine that NCBA violated any tax-related laws after the waiver became the subject of public discussion, they will pay without question.
