Housing and Urban Planning Principal Secretary Charles Hinga on Tuesday said the government's intention to increase the rent paid by those living in government houses.
According to the PS, the current rates is way below the existing market rates, adding that it is time the rates are revised.
Government currently has 56,892 units countrywide housing civil servants, with some passed on to relatives.
Speaking when he appeared before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, Hinga said the last rent review was in 2001.
He said his department has already written to the National Treasury communicating intention to conduct the review to align the rents with the market rates.
The new rents, according to Hinga, will set in once the ministry is done with the ongoing refurbishment of the units.
“On the increment of rent, we wrote to the National Treasury and told them to allow us to increase because we believe [it] is ... high time we looked into this matter because the last review was done in 2021,” the PS told MPs.
The move will be unpleasant surprise for most civil servants who have for years paid peanuts for the expansive houses.
Hinga told the committee that some civil servants are still paying Sh1,000 for a one-bedroom house in Nairobi’s Eastlands.
A one-bedroom house in Eastlands currently goes between Sh10,000 and Sh15,000.
“The average rent being paid is about Sh 2,200. There are people paying as low as Sh 1,000 and there are those paying more but still it is very low,” the PS said.
Civil servants occupying houses at the posh State House road have been paying about Sh 30,000 a month for a five-bedroom house.
In the market, the same house in the locality attracts a rent of between Sh80,000 and Sh 100,000.
Hinga was appearing before the oversight committee chaired by nominated MP John Mbadi to respond to queries raised by Auditor General Nany Gathungu’s 2021-22 report.
The auditor had queried, among others, a shortfall of Sh506,585,000 against the expected total of Sh 1,524,585,000 in rent from the 56,892 houses during the year under review.
Explaining the shortfall, Hinga cited county governments claiming ownership of some of the housing units.
He said devolved units owe the ministry Sh 104 million in the housing scheme involving 1,714 houses.
“The unbundling of the housing functions and assets is not yet done. We do agree that if a house is occupied by a nurse working in the county then the rent should be collected by that county government," Hinga said.
"To deal with this we have been holding so many meetings with the IGTRC (Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee) because it is clear that the rent belongs to counties but the same houses are still under the state department.”
Some of state agencies, he said, are deducting the rent from employees and failing to remit the same.
The unremitted rent stands at Sh16.9 million.
“It is irregular for an MDA (ministries, departments and agencies) to spend money outside budget and rent being the easiest thing to reconcile because they deduct it directly from employees. We expected them to refund the said money but they have not. We have written to both the National Treasury and Head of Public Service on this.”
The PS said that Sh42.5 million was uncollected from 1,501 units that were irregularly alienated.
The remaining rent, Hinga said, is stuck as a result of the ongoing litigations in courts.
The PS said that the rent collection has been on upward trend from the Sh582 million recorded in the 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19.
According to Hinga, the state department was able to collect Sh1.52 billion in 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years.
