Nairobi News

It has emerged that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is still in charge of revenue collection for the Nairobi County Government.

This was revealed on Monday when County Executive Committee (CEC) for Finance Mr Charles Kerich appeared before the County Assembly Committee alongside his ICT counterpart, Mr Michael Gumo.

While appearing to answer questions related to Nairobi Revenue System (NRS), Mr Kerich said they are yet to fully gain the access to the system, nearly seven months after the key functions were reverted to the county government from the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS).

The County ICT team said the full transfer of the system is a process which is currently above 50 per cent, and that they are expected to gain full control of the system within the next few months.

Mr Kerich told the Assembly’s Energy and ICT Committee that at the moment, different departments have limited access to the system.

“I have viewer rights. On my desktop, I can see the revenue as it comes in and it is quite elaborate. I can check parking as of today, I can go to single permit rates and so on,” Kerich said.

Also read: Water supply in Nairobi to be disrupted

He also said at the moment there is no single staff of the county government who has administration rights in the system.

“As of my concern, there is no staff in the county who has the admin rights. KRA has the admin rights.”

The committee questioned why Nairobi revenues are still being managed by KRA, which they said elicits speculations over who is in control.

Commenting on it, Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai, who is the vice chairperson of the committee, said if they will not be satisfied with the answers from the ICT and the Finance team, they will recommend the end of the NRS segment.

Mr Alai said the county has failed to meet its monthly target on revenue collections, hence raising questions.

“They had projected to collect Sh1.3 billion in February and Sh2.7 billion in March. They have collected not even half of what they have projected. What happened? They have to explain why these revenue targets are not met,” Alai said.

Also read: Editors Guild slams Senator Cheruiyot for labelling media a cartel

The MCA added that the county could be losing millions of shillings and no one is being questioned.

“The Nairobi City team who have the access to the system don’t know the bank accounts that are connected to the system. They don’t have an audit of the code. In ICT you need to have an audit of the code because a provider can pretend to connect only one bank account when he has connected three, or four bank accounts. They need to have audited the system properly.”

In June 2021, KRA launched NRS as an initiative of the National Government in collaboration with NMS, and KRA that was aimed at having an integrated single revenue collection system.

The system was formed to enhance service delivery by having simple and easy-to-use system features and providing timely information to customers on the status of their requests and applications.

The system is available for use by both new applications and renewals of services such as; customer registration and account creation, payment for Parking Fees, Market Cess, applications and renewals of Trade Licence, as well as Applications for Food Handlers Certificate for both individual and non-individual).

Also read: Jalang’o ni wetu tayari! Gachagua says as ODM lawmaker attends Ruto function