The Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) together with a World Bank team toured Uasin Gishu County to take the county administration through all revenue streams in order to show them on how they can be able to achieve their potential own source revenue target.
Speaking to the press, during a meeting with the county executive led by Governor Dr. Jonathan Chelilim, his Deputy Eng. John Barorot and all the County Executive Committee Members (CECMs), CRA Commissioner Hadija Juma, revealed that they conducted a study on the potential of own source revenue for county governments and the tax gap and came up with findings that the 47 counties have a potential of collecting up to Sh 216 billion.
However, in the last financial year the counties were only able to collect Sh45 billion, hence the need to take the counties through all their revenue streams and showing them how they can achieve their potential own source revenue targets.
She added that one of the commission’s mandates is to define and enhance revenue sources of both national and county governments.
“We want to appreciate the leadership of Uasin Gishu county led by Governor Chelilim for the good work they are doing and the interest they have shown in enhancing their revenue,” she said.
The CRA Commissioner indicated that enhancing own source revenue is one of the key ways of filling the resource gap for county governments, noting that equitable share is strained and that donor funding comes with restrictions so the real deal is own source revenue.
According to the study by CRA, it is estimated that Uasin Gishu County can collect Sh2, 774, 980,522 per year from various revenue streams which include hospital and public health services fees (21 percent), trading licensing fees (18 percent) Parking fees (11 percent), property rates (9 percent), natural resources transportation fees (6 percent), agricultural resources transportation fees (6 percent) and other streams (21 percent).
“Uasin Gishu has a potential of collecting up to Sh2.7 billion. Last financial year they collected up to Sh918 million, the first half of this financial year they have surpassed 50 percent, we are hoping that by the end of this financial year they will be able to collect around Sh1 billion which is a good thing for the county and we are encouraging county governments to enhance their revenue sources,” explained the Commissioner.
She further underscored that linking revenue collection to service delivery will play a crucial role in enhancing own source revenue as the citizens will appreciate the use of the fees they pay to bring them services like water, access roads and others.
“The message to the citizens and leadership of Uasin Gishu is that when you link revenue collection to service delivery definitely your revenues will be enhanced because that mama mboga in the market is ready to pay the market fees,” she said.
“However, what she expects to see is that, do you clean the market, have you provided water, do you have accessible roads to the markets, do they have street lights, those are the things the citizens expect to see when they are paying their revenues and once they get the services, they will be ready to pay the revenue,” explained the Commissioner.
Hadija applauded Uasin Gishu as a frontier county on the outdoor advertising, parking fees revenue streams, noting that they have performed very well, as she encouraged other counties to come and benchmark with Uasin Gishu County just to learn best practices in terms of revenue collection.
Additionally, she encouraged county governments to do revenue mapping of their own source revenue as that is the only way they can have data and be able to know who is in the county and where they are and when they are supposed to pay the revenue.
“If they have data, if they map out the business people around and all the revenue, they will be now able to achieve their revenue potential,” alluded the CRA commissioner.
Governor Chelilim commended the commission for the study on own source revenue collection noting that it has given the county a hint and the insight on how they improve on revenue collection from own sources.
“They have taken us through the revenue streams, we have seen the weaknesses and areas where we can maximize and the potential that if we can collect 2.8 billion that means we are not doing very well,” he noted.
He said that they have gone through the study and the report and that they have been doing well as a county with a target of Sh1.1 billion.
He revealed that the county has so far collected Sh 918 million in revenue as he expressed hope that in month time, they will be able to hit a billion which is some way half from the real potential Sh2.8 billion as revealed by the commission on revenue allocation.
The governor affirmed that they are ready to bolster revenue collection streams in order to deliver services to the citizens especially now that the county is going to become a city which calls for more services to satisfy the need of the increasing urban population.
“We want to say to commissioners that we are happy for sharing this information with us and we are ready to grow as a county. We need even this money for shared revenue to be increased because we are going to be a city and people will be moving to town which will increase demand for services hence the need to boost them,” said the governor.
The County Boss hinted that there are many areas that they did not map out well especially in the department of lands and they are going to streamline the mapping in order to maximize revenue collection from land and property.
“Remember our pending bills were going up to Sh708 million but so far we have cleared, we are only remaining with Sh37 million to clear and seemingly we are doing very well,” said Dr. Chelilim.
By Ekuwam Sylvester
