Keroche Breweries CEO, Tabitha Karanja, and her husband, Joseph Karanja, have now gone to court seeking to stop their arrest over alleged Ksh14 billion tax fraud.
Through their lawyer, Senator James Orengo, they want the high court to stop DPP Noordin Haji from charging them with ten counts where the exchequer is said to have lost tax revenue.
Information reaching our news desk indicates that the couple spent the night locked in their office in Naivasha as DCI and KRA officers camped at the premises.
On Wednesday evening Tabitha stated that she would not present herself to authorities after a warrant of arrest was issued against her, for claims of evading Ksh14 billion tax.
The entrepreneur also cried out to the government over the allegations that she termed as baseless and meant to malign her.
She expressed shock that she only learnt of the warrant of arrest on WhatsApp and thought of it as fake news, until some of her financiers brought it to her attention.
"You can imagine, I've compiled, I've worked all these years and then you get a WhatsApp, even no formal communication, to be told that you owe the government.
The inquiry relates to the alleged failure to pay tax on various products manufactured and sold by Keroche Breweries Limited during the period of January 2015 to June 2019.
"The audit by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) established that Keroche Breweries Limited had evaded the payment of tax totalling 14,451,836,375," read a part of the statement by the DPP.
Haji noted that the company avoided paying, VAT on products including; stamps allocated (Ksh329 million), Crescent Vodka (Ksh135 million), Vienna Ice - Quantity Variance (Ksh1.7Billion) Vienna Ice - Rate Variance (Ksh9 billion), and Summit beers at Ksh658 million, all coming to a total of Ksh12 billion.
This comes in the backdrop of the recent arraignment of business Humphrey Kariuki and members of his board of directors over claims of tax evasion.
