Kenya’s George Omondi Obell is the first Kenyan to be appointed to the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax matters (ECOSOC).
He is among 24 other members from other countries appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres to the tax committee of the UN in August.
Africa has representatives from Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Djibouti and Zambia in the ECOSOC.
Other countries whose members are in the team include: India, Japan, China, Brazil, Singapore, Russia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Colombia, Poland, Vietnam, Thailand, Jamaica, Argentina, Switzerland, Ecuador and Sweden.
Obell has been serving as the chief manager at Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) international tax office.
He will be in the UN’s tax committee team for the next four years.
Twenty three new members to the team currently work in tax departments for their respective governments.
The 25 were picked from a poll of 60 nominees from a well distributed geographic setting.
“The members are to be drawn from the fields of tax policy and tax administration and selected to reflect an adequate equitable geographical distribution, representing different tax systems,” said Guterres according to Business Daily.
ECOSOC plays a crucial role in setting the tax laws for many countries across the world.
African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) lauded the UN for appointing the six Africans to the tax committee.
“The experience and knowledge these experts will bring to the committee’s work will not only greatly benefit the UN but also their own countries and Africa, as a whole as it will ensure that the UN’s work reflects both the opportunities and challenges faced by African countries in improving domestic resource mobilization,” said ATAF in a statement.
The “UNs model double taxation convention between developed and developing countries, the practical manual on transfer pricing for developing countries and the manual for the negotiation of bilateral tax treaties between developed and developing countries,” are some of the international tax documents updated by the team.