NCBA Managing Director John Gachora has stated that the lender is ready to pay the Sh350 million tax waiver if the court rules so.
The MD said the waiver the bank benefited from during the merger of CBA and NIC was above the board saying the law allows such.
"What I assure Kenyans is that should the court find that NCBA was not entitled to the waiver, the day the court makes that decision, the following day we will send a cheque of Sh350 million. That I can assure you," the MD said during an interview with KTN News.
Gachora dismissed claims by a section of politicians that the bank has been evading paying taxes to the Kenya Revenue Authority saying the lender is tax compliant.
He termed the claims as misleading and that the bank enjoyed preferential treatment from retired President Uhuru Kenyatta's regime.
"In the same year that we got the waiver for sh350 million, we paid a total taxes of sh4.4 billion, more than 10 times that people were talking about," Gachora said.
"NCBA is one of the biggest taxpayers in the country, having paid taxes amounting to Sh6.7 billion in 2021 and will fork out Sh14.3 billion in taxes for last year."
President William Ruto and his allies have trained their guns on Uhuru whom they have accused of engineering the tax waiver to benefit the bank in which the Kenyatta family retains a significant stake.
The National Treasury had exempted the merged NCBA entity from paying Sh350 million in taxes in 2019.
The waiver is the subject to a court case filed by Busia senator and activist Okiya Omtatah who has argued that the National Treasury effected a "secretive and opaque decision".
Omtatah argues that the then National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich did not have the power to arbitrarily grant the tax waiver.
"The taxpayer will suffer great loss estimated at Sh350 million in lost tax revenues that would otherwise accrue to the public coffers," he said in court papers.
But Gachora defended the waiver saying it was not only above board and guaranteed in law.
"People need to understand that the waiver was given to NCBA or the merging parties with over 26,000 shareholders behind the banks that were merging," he said.
The Kenyatta family had a significant stake in CBA, while NIC Group was controlled by wealthy businessman Phillip Ndegwa.
Kenya Kwanza politicians have claimed that the former President used his position to push for the tax waiver, denying the taxman Sh350 million.
