ALL You NEED to KNOW about Raila, Mastermind Tobacco, BAT, KRA and desperate STATEHOUSE Operatives

By Dikembe via Facebook

Desperate to broaden ‘corruption’ that’s currently engulfing it, Jubilee has roped in Raila ODINGA, the usual bogeyman for official cover-up.

Itumbi is using a letter written by then PS in PM’s office Mr. Andrew Mondow to KRA to stop action on Mastermind. What Itumbi isn’t saying is why the Office of the Prime Minister got involved.

BACKGROUND
BAT (British American Tobacco), a cigarette manufacturer bribed KRA officials to enforce punitive tax actions on Mastermind, a LOCAL cigarette manufacturer so as to monopolize the Kenyan cigarette market. Mastermind, having no other office to turn to lodged its case with the Office of the Prime Minister.

The office of the Prime Minister then WROTE THE LETTER Itumbi is peddling on social media. This letter RESTRAINED KRA (then already bribed by BAT) to stop its punitive tax action on Mastermind.

The result (which Itumbi is not saying) is that Mastermind, with Raila’s intervention, survived.

RAILA THE BELIEVER IN LOCAL COMPANIES.
Now, unlike BAT, which keeps its profits in Europe and America, Mastermind is a local company.
The story of local companies in Kenya is a story of one incorruptible office stopping the overbearance of multinational companies from suffocating it out of business.

It is the story of Keroche Breweries whose wars with EABL also ended on PM Raila Odinga’s desk. Had Raila not intervened, Keroche would be dead. For this fact, Keroche has remained grateful to Mr. Odinga.

It is the story that pitted Tuskys and Naivas against Indians (Ukwala and Nakummat). It is the story of Equity Bank and its decade long battle to break the banking ceiling in Kenya, then held by colonial era European/American banks.

It is the story of every single start-up company with the potential to eat into a multinational company’s market share.
It’s flipside, that is, if there is no one to help such companies, they die. They get consumed by giant multinationals with connections to KRA or any corrupt regulatory body in Kenya. Safaricom remains a monopoly because of this.

Back to Mastermind. When you read the revelations (being exclusively published by business daily) nowhere in the bits and pieces does Mr. Hopkins (the whistleblower) indicate that he bribed Mr. Odinga, or Mr. Mondoh. This same man does however boldly indicate they bribed Martha Karua and Moses Wetangula (on behalf of BAT) to punish Mastermind.

In a sense, Raila Odinga stopped corruption. He stopped corrupt KRA officials from driving Mastermind out of business. He stopped PNU (now TNA/JP) cashcow (both Wetangula and Karua were high ranking PNU honchos).

Even more egregious, during this time, KRA commissioner for domestic tax was a Mr. John Njiraini. Well, the man got promoted!
Instead of Mr. Itumbi using his energies to push for removal of this Njiraini, now the KRA Commissioner-General, he is busy maligning the name of Mr. Andrew Mondoh and Mr. Raila Odinga.

The facts of the BAT scam (it is called BAT scam because it is BAT that was corrupting public officials to drive Mastermind out of market) is out there but the propaganda of it all is being peddled in here.
Friends, read this letter and tell me if you think Mr. Odinga didn’t act in good faith, or, in accordance with the law:

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