Nairobi, Jan. 20 -- Will Kenya remain forever hung on its tax dilemma, or is there a way out and forward for a nation where hardly anyone pays direct taxes, and the government is now chasing a wider and wider array of indirect taxes? It's a problem that sits at the heart of nationhood.
At first base, how much do we need and want public goods and services? What do we get for all that public spending - roads, schools, hospitals, border security, ports, trains and occasionally agricultural extension? The facts are that despite all the stealing we do get some genuine services from our public sector.
Yet our whole social contract, whereby we pay taxes for shared and collective public goods, is in a terrible state of repair.
The first base is ...