KRA demands Kshs 740,000 from Kenyan athletes

Kenya Revenue Authority on Tuesday night detained a shoe consignment that had training shoes that had been brought in the country from athletes who had participated in Chicago Marathon that was held on Sunday in USA.

According to the double World Marathon Majors champion, Joyciline Jepkosgei, the KRA officials’ confiscated their belongings that included four bags that had their training shoes.

The 30 year-old raised a desperation call immediately they had landed and when they were detained by the customs officials who took their Nike and Adidas branded bags that contained their shoes.

“Hello everyone. We arrived at Kenyatta airport from Chicago marathon need help here in the airport KRA offices have taken two bags of training shoes charging every shoe Ksh19, 000 kindly help.”

According to our anonymous source from Athletics Kenya, who did not want to be mentioned due to the sensitivity of the issue and spoke to Athletics News exclusively, said that the KRA officials were not at fault at all as they were on duty and doing their work as prescribed.

“Before boarding the plane, the athletes could have informed the federation in advance and we could have solved the issues earlier but it’s unfortunate that we have learned about this issues from the internet, our source said.

“We have rushed to salvage the situation and we know the 40 pairs of shoes will be handed back to the athletes. Our bosses have already communicated with their counter parts in KRA and in the course of the day, the bags will be released,” our source concluded.

According to the figures given by Jepkosgei that the tax collector demanded before they could release their bags of Kshs 19,000 with the total number of shoes which were 40 pairs amounts to a total tax of Kshs 740,000.