Bomet County is hoping to hit a revenue collection target of Sh300m after adopting the e-pay automated system.
County Executive Committee for Finance (CEC), Andrew Kimutai, said Bomet has been struggling to meet its revenue to fund development projects but this has not been met due to loopholes arising from the the initial cash manual system.
“We have been facing challenges with our revenue collection, in the financial year 2019/20 our target was Sh 245 million but we managed Sh 211m. We have realised that revenue from our people might be ending up in wrong hands hence the implementation of the system,” said Kimutai.
He said residents will willingly pay their rates and dues if they know it will not be diverted along the way.
Kimutai however said improvement in revenue collection is likely to take longer as most businesses suffered from the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic
“Improvements in terms of higher revenue collection is likely going to be seen in other years due to the impact of Corona on businesses,” said Kimutai.
Governor Hillary Barchok who launched the system, said the county has been unable to meet its full potential of own-source revenue collection of Sh700 million annually.
“Revenue collection has been a major challenge and we have been delivering less than a quarter of our potential because of the manual systems that we have been using over the years,” said Barchok.
He said they have contracted Jambo Pay, the company that ran Nairobi’s eJijiPay online revenue collection for more than five years.
It is expected that the e-payment system will be monitored in real-time with fees paid directly to the county’s revenue bank account which would minimise loopholes, and boost performance and efficiency.
JamboPay will collect payments on its platform across all revenue streams that include heath, trade and tourism in all the five sub-counties of Bomet East, Bomet Central, Konoin, Sotik and Chepalungu.
The system is also expected to curb cases of landowners not remitting their rates and even avoiding payment of the principal amount.
