"The petitioner is telling us that if we remove VAT on books, then books will be accessible and more people will read. They told a petitioner, Mr Njoroge Waweru, a book collector, that they were unlikely to yield to his petition seeking an amendment to the VAT Act, to scrap the 16 per cent tax. Updated Thu, May 12th 2016 at 15:06 GMT +3NAIROBI, KENYA: A parliamentary committee yesterday rejected the push to scrap the 16 per cent value-added tax that was imposed on textbooks three years ago. The National Treasury slapped a 16 per cent tax on text books in 2013, and publishers have been complaining that the tax, plus rising cost of paper, pushed the prices of books up significantly. Njoroge had told MPs that the tax had made books very expensive, and had discouraged many people from reading, and even university scholars were not publishing extensively.

Source: Standard Digital May 12, 2016 06:58 UTC