Inside Sakaja’s new Nairobi Pay revenue system

Nairobi residents now can access county services using the newly launched Nairobi Pay.

The  new electronic system is already working and registration is ongoing.

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja told the Star the new system is effective, easy to use and will easily be accessible to all.

"Growth is inevitable and we had to move from the Nairobi Revenue System because Nairobi now has its own capacity to have its own revenue," he said.

Nairobi Revenue System costing Sh160 million was launched in January 2021 by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the Nairobi county government.

However, the systems are different as all 136 county services are now accessible at the new Nairobi Pay.

“There is little difference between the two. What we have done with Nairobi Pay is streamlining all our services to be on the Nairobi E-Service (NairobiPay) portal,” Sakaja said.

Residents who had already registered under the NRS do not need to register again, however those who do not have an account need to register in the online portal.

"It is now easy to make payment for services in Nairobi city county using Nairobi E-Services (Nairobi Pay) portal. Visit the portal nairobiservices.go.ke and follow the steps,” Sakaja said.

One can access the NRS through nairobirevenueservices.go.ke or via the USSD code by dialing *647#.

Payment for parking services, rent, business licences, fire services,  market fees, land rates, public health certification, development control, social services and all new applications will now be made via Nairobi Pay.

By digitising the payments, Sakaja promised residents that Nairobi stands a chance to be ranked among the most improved counties in revenue collection in 2023.

“Nairobi Pay  is a revenue management system that has end-to-end encryption allowing customers to make applications, get approvals and make payments once they are registered,” Sakaja said.

Nairobi had missed its revenue target for the first quarter of the current financial year 2022-23, by Sh2.9  billion.

From July to October 2022, Sh1.2 billion was collected against a target of Sh3.2 billion.

This was also a drop of Sh100 million compared to Sh1.37 billion collected in the same period in the last financial year.

The data is contained in the Quarterly Revenue and Expenditure report for 2021-22 tabled in the county assembly.

The own source revenue streams include parking fees, rates, single business permits, house rents, building permits and, billboards and adverts accounting to close to 80 per cent of the county’s annual own-source revenue

During the period under review, City Hall collected Sh151.8 million from rates, single business permits (Sh65.4 million) and parking fees (Sh373.9 million).

Building permits (Sh259.7 million), billboard and adverts (Sh96.2 million), while markets collected Sh50.8 million.

For fire services Sh5.4 million was collected, house rents (Sh81.9 million), food handlers certificates (Sh17.3 million), liquor licences (Sh45.3 million and other revenues of Sh80.9 million were collected.

Nairobi aims to collect Sh18.2 billion own-source revenue in the financial year 2022-23.

This is part of the Sh38.3 billion county budget.

The county has been falling short of its revenue target since it came into existence in 2013 despite the digitisation of 136 of its revenue streams.

This has been blamed on unreliable rates, low collection from single business permits and inefficient collection of parking fees.

The highest amount ever collected was Sh11.71 billion in 2015-16 which was still short of the Sh15.3 billion target.

The lowest was collected in 2019-20 at  Sh8.5 billion which was half the targeted Sh17.31 billion.

However with Nairobi Pay, Sakaja said he was optimistic that revenue collection will increase.

The Governor  said that he is hopeful that this year, Nairobi will be ranked among the most improved counties in terms of revenue collection.

(Edited by V.Graham)