Before 22nd August 2023, not many Kenyans knew Humphrey Wattanga. His appointment by then Treasury Cabinet Secretary Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u as Commissioner General of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) lifted him out of the privacy of investment management at Meghraj Capital Limited where he worked as managing director. Meghraj Capital Group is the investment banking advisory arm of the Meghraj Group and an international firm founded by Meghji Pethraj Shah (MP Shah).
Mr Wattanga, who replaced Githii Mburu, was appointed for a period of three years, meaning his contract will lapse next year in July. While taking up the position, he described himself as a “seasoned corporate and public finance professional with a strong interest in the systematic analysis of transformative market opportunities and the evaluation of their potential.”
Coming from the financial world, his corporate lingo was understandable. Simply put, he meant he is a financial expert adept at using technology to capture trends.
After gaining years of experience in the United States, initially with a pioneering web-based ERP technology firm (Agillion Inc.) and later with the world’s largest telecommunications company (AT&T), Mr Wattanga says he moved to South Africa in 2004 and established a successful financial advisory firm that provided cross-border corporate finance and transaction advisory services to public and private sector clients on the continent.
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In 2013, Mr Humphrey Mulongo Wattanga returned to Kenya and introduced a robust system for automating bond trading to the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Subsequently, he was among the team that built a mobile gateway onto the platform, linking the bond trading system to Kenya’s mobile money market.
“This expanded investment participation in the capital markets to include the previously excluded Mama Mboga,” says Mr Wattanga in his CV. “The National Treasury used the platform to issue the world’s first mobile-only government bond, M-Akiba. The Kenya Kwanza administration is planning on reviving issuance of the M-Akiba bond, for purposes of investing savings deducted from the Hustler Fund.”
He also served for six years as full-time as a Commissioner on the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), rising to the position of Vice Chair, until December 2022.
Wattanga’s road to the top of the corporate world was laid down in 1990 when he emerged as the top candidate in that year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), scoring straight As, at Alliance High School.
For this fete, he received the Dr Ouko Award for Academic Excellence and secured an internship at the East Africa Industries (UNILEVER) in Nairobi. He then studied briefly at the University of Nairobi and proceeded to Harvard University to study Biochemical Sciences, before going to the Wharton School for his Master of Business Administration, majoring in Information Systems Strategy and Economics, a course that piqued his interest in the convergence of technology and finance.
Mr Wattanga is faced with the task of growing tax revenue in a country where compliance levels remain stubbornly low. While he has made hits here and there, the misses have been glaring with shortfalls in meeting targets. He hopes new reforms initiated to ensure compliance, backed by high-tech systems, will increase collections going forward.
In his new position, the commissioner general has his work cut out for him with the Ruto government, with a high appetite for taxes, raising revenue collection targets for the 2024/2025 financial year to Ksh3 trillion, a majority of which is expected to originate from an expanded tax base.
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