Mama Mboga pays her taxes daily…not through ledgers or balance sheets, but through every tomato she sells, every paper bag she buys, every coin she counts under the glare of the evening sun. Her tax is automatic, silent, and inescapable. Every packet of flour, every litre of cooking oil, every boda boda fare; all taxed. Yet when you ask her what she gets in return, she points to potholes, power cuts, and promises.
Meanwhile, billion-shilling corporations —the giants of global trade— operate in the same Kenya but live in a different reality. Through clever accounting, shell companies, and sweetheart deals, they move profits across borders faster than a hustler can sell sukuma. The G20 nations —the world’s economic powerhouses— design tax systems that shield the rich and shift the burden onto the poor. It’s a global scam wearing a suit of policy.
Back home, Kenya bleeds from the inside. The same government that brands itself as “Hustler Nation” continues to burden the real hustlers while shielding the billionaires. Tax reforms come wrapped as “revenue enhancement,” but what they enhance is suffering. Fuel levies rise, food prices follow, and the cost of living crushes the ordinary mwananchi; while billionaires write off millions in “losses.”
Every year, Kenya loses billions through tax evasion, illicit financial flows, and corruption…enough to build hospitals, equip schools, and end the shame of girls missing class for lack of pads. Yet instead of sealing the loopholes at the top, the state keeps digging deeper into the pockets of the poor. Mama Mboga pays for the rot she never caused.
This isn’t just bad economics; it’s moral failure. When multinational companies exploit weak tax regimes, when cartels hoard fuel, when billionaires get exemptions, and when leaders trade tax justice for campaign donations, the system itself becomes complicit in inequality.
The irony is cruel. The government chases hawkers in the streets but shields tycoons in boardrooms. It taxes boda boda riders but signs deals that let corporations move profits tax-free. It calls on citizens to “tighten their belts” while wearing imported designer ones.
Kenya doesn’t suffer from poverty of resources; it suffers from the poverty of fairness. True reform won’t come from new taxes; it will come from justice…tax justice. It’s time to ask: why is it easier to tax a cabbage than a corporation?
Until that question is answered, Mama Mboga will keep paying her dues to a country that keeps breaking its promises; one shilling at a time.
Have we truly built a Hustler Nation, or have we simply perfected the art of hustling the hustlers?
