•City Hall has performed poorly in revenue since the start of devolution in 2013
• New Bill seeks to reinforce long term solutions to improve revenue collection
Image: EZEKIEL AMINGA
The Nairobi county assembly has raised concern over poor revenue collection in the county.
Revenue has not risen despite the county managing its own collection system. The first three months of this financial year have witnessed low collection, with City Hall posting a fall of Sh336 million between June and August.
Documents from the county Revenue Department reveal that in the past three months for the 138 revenue streams, Sh 1.5 billion was collected compared to Sh1.9 billion in a similar period last year.
In June, City Hall collected only Sh502 million, followed by Sh 587 million in July and Sh450 million last month .
In a similar period last financial year, Sh720 million was collected in June, the amount dropped to Sh600 million in July and to Sh555 in August, totaling Sh1.8 billion.
The legislators want to pass the Nairobi City County Revenue Administration Bill, 2019 which entirely focuses on improving collection.
Vice chairman of the Finance, Budget and Appropriations committee Patrick Karani said the county has performed poorly in revenue since 2013.
"Since 2013 the collection has been going down and it is only a fool who will be expecting good results by doing the same routine again," he said.
"This bill is crucial on matters of revenue collection. How the bill plans to restructure the entire department is quite reasonable," he added.
Karani pointed out that the current system of revenue collection was very inefficient and worse than the privately owned JamboPay.
Image: EZEKIEL AMINGA
Finance executive Charles Kerich attributed the decline to the introduction of the new online payment system.
“The new system requires a lot of modification and we are in discussion with National Bank on how we can deal with the challenges and how they can enhance their capacity,” he said.
On June 7, 2019 , City Hall cut ties with JamboPay of Webtribe Limited which has been collecting revenue for Nairobi since 2014.
The county launched its own new system, the Nairobi City County Revenue Management System, which has been in operation for the last three months.
When it was launched, Kerich said the new internal system was watertight and would ensure the county collected more.
Waithaka MCA Anthony Kiragu said no system could be worse than JamboPay.
"JamboPay created a system for collection but also opened the doors to theft. Stealing of public funds is illegal and that is what was happening before," he said.
Kiragu said the County Revenue Administration Bill has defined structures that will ensure effective collection of revenue .
Robert Mbatia, chairman of the Budget committee, is the sponsor of the bill.
The bill proposes the formation of a board which shall deal with all issues related to revenue collection.
The board will comprise nine members headed by a non-executive chairperson appointed by the governor with the approval of the county assembly, chief officer Finance and four other persons appointed by the Finance executive.
The board will include the county revenue administrator who shall be an ex-officio member and one member from a special interest group.
Nairobi Central MCA Daniel Ngegi said that the bill will enable the county to attain its revenue targets.
"We have been passing budgets of over Sh30 billion yet we cannot achieve our own set targets for the revenue. This is the appropriate time as a county to take a different direction if we want to provide adequate services to Nairobians," he said.
Mbatia said the main aim of the proposed revenue administration law is to reinforce long-term solutions to improve revenue collection.
"I want to thank our Governor Mike Sonko because he read this bill and saw the importance of it. This bill had received massive rejection from the executive but he saw the light in it and gave the go ahead," he said.