The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) has availed a new Integrated Revenue Services Digital Platform that will enable the residents of Nairobi County access services online.
This customer centric system will ensure convenience to citizens through easy and reliable access to services including business processes, parking, fire services, land rates, development control, social services, and other permits.
Speaking Friday during a press briefing at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) prior to the flagging off of the caravan to promote the new system within targeted areas of the Nairobi region, NMS Director General (DG) Lt. General Mohamed Badi said the growing demand for service delivery and public expectation warrants the need to further streamline NMS’s operations.
Badi noted that the critical support of stake-players including the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) has enabled the NMS to achieve significant early success across various transferred functions.
The Director General observed that the hindrance to the aim of NCCG to provide affordable, accessible, and sustainable quality services to Nairobi residents is due to over-time deficiencies in service delivery, processes, and platform.
“This situation has resulted in customer inconveniences characterized by a long, tedious and manual service delivery process,” he said.
He added that service delivery and revenue collection in Nairobi County has been impeded by limitations posed by the existence of multiple stand-alone county revenue collection systems, which has posed various challenges revolving around accountability, security, and stability.
The Director General maintained that the existing data to support service delivery and revenue collection is incomplete, outdated and in some cases lack data integrity or is unavailable.
According to Badi, this current state of affairs has created service delivery gaps to the citizenry that is further fueled by shortfalls in revenue collection.
“In view of all the shortcomings and in our duty to harness our income streams to afford quality and reliable services to the mwananchi, NMS, NCCG, and KRA have together worked tirelessly over the last one year to establish this integrated management system which will now bring services even closer to the residents and visitors of Nairobi,” Badi revealed.
Further, he expounded on the totality of the services offered explaining the availability of the Nairobi Revenue Services which can be found both online and in the NMS’s website at nairobiservices.go.ke as well as through the USSD code *647# and is accessible to citizens, institutions, and organizations.
The Director General remarked that to date after the initial roll out phase of the new system, NMS has documented all the county business processes and registered customers with a total of Sh1.06 billion in revenue collected.
He notified the public to access the services including the aforementioned in addition to payment of market fees, county houses rents, and public health certification in order to avoid disruption in service delivery as NMS embarks on migration to the new phase.
Badi emphasized that all new applications must be processed in NRS effective 1st December 2021 as NMS continues to ensure sustained capacity building for system users, training, and support across the institutions.
“I am convinced we can make Nairobi great again if we remain driven by the philosophy, ‘together we are stronger, more efficient and can manage our resource’,” he said.
At the same time, KRA Commissioner Mburu Githii said that the institution is focused on ensuring Nairobi County has a credible revenue collection system and data.
The commissioner insisted that working and collaborating with NMS has encouraged KRA to focus on ensuring it has an accountable workforce and a legal framework that is able to support effective revenue mobilization.
“One of the challenges we have been experiencing, such as having multiple systems that are disjointed and used for collection of revenues, is what we are trying to solve today once we roll out the NRS,” he said.
He added that the uncoordinated management of the county staff is the other challenge KRA is seeking to address fully through discussions with the national government by having more responsibility over the staff deployed to collect revenue.
“As we pursue this initiative, we believe we will be able to achieve a better revenue mobilization for the county which then translates into better services for the people of Nairobi,” he remarked.
On the 25th February 2020, the national government transferred four county government functions to the NMS including, County Health services, County Transport services, County Public Works, Utilities and Ancillary services, and County Government Planning and Development to foster effective service delivery in an effective and accountable manner and give full benefits of the devolved and decentralized governance to the residents of Nairobi.
By Michael Omondi and Wilkister Akinyi
