11 April 2019 5 3K Report

Is health in Kenya adequately financed? Relatedly, is there a need for additional sources of revenue to fund health? The limited resources that are available to the Kenyan government are prioritised in the budget that earmarks how much is to be allocated to each public sector. Regrettably, health financing has been on a reducing scale and the government is considering ways to broaden its revenue base for financing health. I want to pick up on the argument of limited resources and posit Islamic taxation as an alternative source of revenue potentially available to the Kenyan government for financing health. Scholars have considered the argument of limited resources from the lens of prioritisation – that is the need to make the best possible use of these limited resources to continually improve the well-being of society and increase the revenue in the long term. Other scholars have posited that the argument on limited resources is to be examined by inquiring into different ways by which the resource base can be increased. Among the latter scholars, many suggest an examination of the tax policy of a state to increase taxation. Tax increments place a higher burden on the poor and middle-income earners, and is therefore not a persuasive approach to broadening the tax base. If the discourse on limited resources is to be analysed further from the scholarship on broadening the tax base then isnt it important to also address it from a different discipline, Islamic taxation?

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