SportPesa goes on the offensive to defend Kenya tax payments

SportPesa has taken out a full-page advert in Kenya’s local newspapers explaining its tax contribution, following government accusations it hasn’t been contributing enough to the treasury.

The advert, which appeared in newspapers on Monday, explained that SportPesa generated revenues of KSH20bn (£155.3m), accumulating profits of KSH9bn (£69m) and making a tax contribution of KSH6.4bn (£49.7m) in 2018.

The Kenyan government recently released a report claiming that the entire Kenyan sports betting sector had only paid Ksh.4bn (£31m) in taxes during 2018. In April, Kenyan Interior minister Fred Matiang’i gave the sector until the 1 July to pay its outstanding tax.

Following the ruling Kenya stripped a number of operators of their licences and ordered the country’s telcos to stop processing payments to 27 operators, including SportPesa.

Following the expiry of this deadline earlier this month Kenya’s Betting and Control Board chose to suspend licence renewals for 27 local sports betting operators and ordered Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom to stop processing payments for the operators.

https://twitter.com/SportPesa/status/1149647697751625728

In addition to providing details on the operator’s taxation contribution, the advertisement explained that SportPesa has contributed KSH1.37bn (£10.6m) to local sports teams and a further KSH171m (£1.3m) to social programs throughout Kenya, including agriculture, conservation, water access and education infrastructure.

Regulus Partners warned last week the payment blocking could affect 90% of total volume in the market.