The Nairobi City County Assembly Energy and ICT Committee has raised concerns over transparency in the revenue collection system.
Speaking during the media briefing at the County Assembly Yard, Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai told the press that it was important to shed light on the current state of revenue collection and accountability by the Nairobi County Government.
Alai said that Nairobi has a potential of 25 revenue streams and only 8 are automated, the remaining 17 which are automated are being pilfered money from markets’ access.
He added that in the previous Financial year, Nairobi County is reported to have received Sh15Billion from the National Government and collected just over Sh10 billion from its own source revenue.
“We believe that it is possible that Nairobi County raises much more than this figure and we are confident that it is even capable of raising as much as Sh43 Billion annually from its revenue sources,” he affirmed.
From research across various county wards, speaking with people working in the Transport, Public Health, Trade, Environment, and Infrastructure sectors, Alai claimed that Nairobi County possibly reports 10 percent of total daily collected revenue and collects less than one third of the possible income.
“Let us restate that the Sectoral Committee on Energy and ICT is established pursuant to the provisions of the Nairobi City County Assembly Standing Orders,” stated Alai.
He added that among the committee’s functions is to investigate and inquire into all matters relating to the assigned departments as they may deem necessary and as may be referred to them by the County Assembly.
“We highlight this issue at this time because the recent report by the Ethics and Anti -Corruption Commission (EACC) on the capacity of the Nairobi County’s revenue collection system coincided with our own inquiries into the whole revenue management program,” he disclosed.
“The current challenges facing Nairobi County residents including loss of life due to the mismanagement of our health facilities, poor roads, Water and Sewer infrastructure coupled with dilapidated physical infrastructure and low quality of residential lives are the results of poor revenue management,” Alai highlighted.
He pointed out that the National Government has recently been steadfast in the use of technology to ease service delivery for Kenyans in line with the National Digital master plan and agenda, the drive to automate Government services and make them available online is commendable.
The MCA insisted that Automation should not end on the revenue streams, adding that Non-revenue functions automation is an aspect forgotten in the campaign by the President.
“We call Upon the President to initiate similar changes in devolved units, beginning with the highly strategic Nairobi City County. It is time the County operated an organization wide ICT system also known as ERP instead of the present use of disjointed systems which do not communicate with each other,” urged Alai.
By Kamau Maina and Nice Wambui
