MCAs probe Nairobi ‘erratic’ system

The Nairobi County Assembly has raised a red flag over intermittent system failure of the Nairobi Revenue Services (NRS), a fee collection system in the capital city amid dwindling amounts in rates.

Fears are also rife over suspected tampering of the revenue collection system and possible embezzlement of funds by occasioning leakage through unaccounted and unrecorded levies generated from taxpayers.

Already, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has flagged Nairobi currently under the Johnson Sakaja’s leadership as one of the counties with integrity issues in revenue collection and management.

Consequently, Members of the Nairobi County Assembly (MCAs) have approved creation of an ad-hoc committee to probe how revenue is collected and allocated by  governor Sakaja’s administration.

There have been mounting concerns among MCAs regarding the diminishing revenue of the Nairobi county government. Creation of the ad-hoc committee sailed through following approval of a motion tabled on the floor of the House by Majority Leader Peter Imwatok.

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

“The committee will represent both majority and minority factions in Parliament.” Imwatok affirmed.

 The MCAs have now called for comprehensive investigations to uncover the reasons behind this decline of revenue.

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

“How can a whole county like Nairobi be collecting less than Sh10 million a day? We need answers as soon as possible. We will not allow anyone to play with taxpayers money,” he said.

CEC not aware

Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai, who was the first to raise the concerns about revenue claimed Finance executive Charles Kerich is not aware of the current collector and manager of the revenue system.

Alai noted all 135 revenue streams are automated through NRS, so when the system is down, everything is down.

“When the Nairobi Metropolitan term expired (NMS), all functions ought to have been reversed to the County Government, yet very suspicions, there are concerns or sub-contraction of revenue collection by KRA then to Nairobi Revenue System in unclear and un-procedural way,” said Alai.

In response to these concerns, Sakaja said 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,” he said.

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 realised income.

In March, it was revealed that KRA is still in charge of the revenue collection at Nairobi City County. This is despite the current administration coming into power last year in August. Kerich said that despite the transition process between the then NMS and City Hall coming to an end in November last year, the revenue system has never been handed back to the county and they are still in the transfer process.

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