Despite sacking all its 400 employees, the giant betting firm SportPesa is still hopeful of resuming operations in the Kenyan market, a week after it announced closing shop in the country.
The company has for the last three months been pushing to have it's cancelled licence re-issued, after clearing with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) over tax wrangles.
SportPesa Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ronald Karauri on Thursday said that the company is still pursuing the revival of its operations in Kenya, through the court.
He lamented the state's decision to impose an additional 20 per cent taxation on all revenues, arguing that the same has never been seen anywhere across the world.
"We are still in court over the matter of our licence. I hope those in authority will realise there is no need to come up with a system of taxation that has never been used anywhere else in the world,” Karauri said as quoted by Daily Nation.
SportPesa and Betin Kenya were not lucky in their bid to have their licenses renewed, even as the likes of Mozzartbet and Betway succeeded in their similar bid.
Should SportPesa lose out in its push, then it will come as a blow to some local sporting firms and teams which have been depending on its millions of shillings worth of sponsorships.