Nairobi county has set aside Sh160 million to roll out a new revenue management system.
The Local Authority Integrated Financial Operations Management System (Laifoms) will be phased out by December.
It will be replaced by Integrated County Revenue Management System.
The ICRMS set to be rolled out in December is expected to boost the ever declining county own-source revenue.
Finance executive Allan Igambi said the county needs to have a system that can withstand the test of time and be tamperproof.
The plans are highlighted in the 2021-22 budget.
City Hall has been experiencing dwindling local revenue returns, collecting Sh8.5 billion in the financial year ending June 30, 2020.
This was a drop of more than Sh1.5 billion from the Sh10.17 billion in the financial year ending June 30, 2019.
In March last year, KRA was appointed as the principal revenue collection agent for the county.
In the just-ended financial year, KRA posted a collection of Sh9.7 billion, an increase of Sh1.2 billion.
City Hall currently relies on Laifoms and other KRA systems for revenue collection across the 136 automated revenue streams.
However, Laifoms was termed obsolete and not optimised.
The system's challenges include outdated database infrastructure, data centre instability, outdated anti-virus and operating system and management of the construction permit system by a third party.
Laifoms is also said to lack proper reconciliations between the National Bank of Kenya and the county or incomplete records.
Budget and Appropriations committee chairperson Robert Mbatia said the new ICRMS is where all county revenue data will be domiciled and it will be integrated with the Nairobi Revenue System being run by KRA.
He added that all data from Laifoms will be stored under the new system.
In December 2017, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched a Sh1.3 billion data centre to replace Laifoms which had been termed as aged and inefficient.
However, the data centre has been lying idle since then due to lack of key software component applications. This include the Virtual Machine Ware and Enterprise Resource Planning application system needed to make it fully operational.
The Ann Kananu administration will also be implementing the Enterprise Resource Programme, to ensure full integration of all revenue subsystems at City Hall.
The programme will automate City Hall's business processes such as citizen services, procurement, specialised departmental functions and revenue management.
ERP will also be integrated with other applications such as e-payment, IFMIS and web portal.
“The platform is expected to be a panacea to maximise revenue collection and halt perennial outsourcing of revenue collection services thus helping to reduce the cost of collection,” Igambi said.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
