Nairobi News

Nairobi’s Members of County Assembly (MCAs) have approved a motion to create an ad-hoc committee tasked with investigating the county’s revenue collection systems.

The motion, presented by Majority Leader Peter Imwatok, aims to shed light on how revenue is collected and allocated within the county.

The motion suggested the formation of an emergency committee consisting of 13 MCAs to delve into the intricacies of the revenue collection system.

“The committee will represent both majority and minority factions in parliament,” Imwatoka emphasized.

This decision comes in response to mounting concerns among MCAs regarding the diminishing revenue of the Nairobi county government.

They have called for a comprehensive investigation to uncover the reasons behind this decline.

Imwatok noted that despite Nairobi County having multiple revenue sources, there has been a consistent underperformance in annual revenue collection compared to annual expenditures.

In pursuit of enhancing revenue collection, the county government has implemented various strategies, including the adoption of automatic revenue collection systems like JamboPay.

Notably, this development follows Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja’s recent defense of his government, highlighting the use of the Nairobi Revenue Services (NRS) revenue collection website.

This was after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) identified Nairobi as one of the counties with integrity issues in revenue collection and management.

In response to these concerns, the Nairobi county government clarified that the NRS website is fully compliant with the law governing the relationship between different levels of government.

“Nairobi County Government and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) reached an agreement on November 15, 2021, to use NRS for improved service delivery and revenue collection,” as stated in the press read.

Since 2013, Nairobi has consistently fallen short of its revenue targets, posing challenges to the city’s fiscal health. Notable disparities between revenue projections and actual collections have raised concerns.

For instance, in the fiscal year 2017-18, the city managed to collect just Sh10.17 billion, considerably below the target of Sh17.23 billion. In the preceding year (2016-17), City Hall aimed to generate Sh19.57 billion but only managed to secure Sh10.93 billion.

The highest revenue collection over this period occurred in 2015-16, amounting to Sh11.71 billion. However, even this achievement remained well below the Sh15.3 billion target, highlighting the persistent gap between revenue aspirations and realized income.

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