@alalmaurice
The Kisumu government is going after land rate debtors to recover Sh20 billion.
Finance and Planning executive Nerry Achar said on Wednesday the county has engaged a debt collector to collect Sh20 billion, mostly in land rates, to boost its revenue.
He said the debt collector has made progress in the recovery, but declined to give the amount figure collected. Achar spoke at the county government offices.
The county, he said, has performed poorly in revenue collection and expressed confidence in improving revenue collection by adopting new tactics.
Kisumu has been given a target of Sh1.3 billion in revenue collection by the national government. “We are enhancing our efforts on revenue collection in order to meet the target given to us,” the finance boss said.
Achar said the county was lacking a valuation role to guide revenue collection in the county.
“We have been lacking what we call valuation roll, so we have not been charging the rates as expected,” he added.
Achar said the Kisumu county assembly will soon pass a Bill on valuation roll to help in revenue collection.
He said what traders and other streams are paying is not within the recommendation in the valuation roll and will change once the Bill is passed.
Achar announced that Governor Anyang Nyong’o will on October 18 launch a revenue drive aimed at raising the revenue base in the county.
He said the county had contracted UN-Habitat to research on how to optimise revenue collection in the county.
Meanwhile, Achar said the county has paid salaries and asked health workers who have been on strike to resume duty.
Kisumu spends Sh300 million monthly on salaries for county staff.
