Governor Dhadho Godhana has reiterated his commitment to seal all loopholes in revenue collection through digitization of payment in a bid to increase the Own Source Revenue (OCR).
The Office of the Controller of Budget in its County Government annual budget implementation review report for the financial year 2021/22 noted that Tana River generated a total of Shs.72.26 million as own-source revenue.
“This amount represented a decrease of 13.0 percent compared to Shs.83.08 million realized in FY 2020/21 and was 82.3 percent of the annual target”, reads the COB report.
Speaking in his inaugural address to the third session of the Tana River County Assembly, the Governor said realistic revenue collection targets will be set and Revenue Officers will be tasked with the realization of the targets.
“My Government will continue to enforce and improve the cashless revenue collection system across all major revenue collection centers to seal the loopholes of revenue loss and proliferation,” said Godhana.
The Governor added that his administration will also strengthen the contract management system to weed out the briefcase and incompetent contractors.
“I look forward to the implementation of an innovative and functional system of receiving, tracking, and processing invoices from contractors, service providers, and merchants guided by the Public Finance Management Act.
This will create transparency in payments and reduce the undue delays in payments which have caused untold loss of capital and income to our contractors and merchants,” Godhana said.
The Governor revealed in his address that he inherited a dysfunctional administration and has been grappling with the challenge of pending bills that they inherited from the first County Government.
“When I took over the administration in 2017, I found the County in a state of inertia from a demoralized human resource and pending bills running into millions of shillings while other counties were carrying on with their development programs,” he said.
That aside, he said internal differences in his first term where he fell out with his Deputy Governor coupled with differences with the County Assembly was a barrier to achieving his desired development agenda.
He added, “The days of backroom deals and opaque decisions are long gone particularly now that we are in the digital age and my administration promises to walk and work with you in a transparent and collegial manner to actualize our development agenda”.
He advised the MCAs to make legislation that will positively impact the lives of Tana residents.
He promised to work with the MCAs to transform the county irrespective of their political parties’ affiliations.
By Sadik Hassan
