Land and property owners in Kajiado County have been told to immediately pay their rates arrears or risk sale restrictions over default.
Finance and Economic Planning Executive Alais Kisota now says there is a huge backlog of unpaid land and property rates that is costing the county's performance in its own source revenue (OSR).
Mr Kisota reiterated that the devolved unit had been lenient on the rates arrears since the Covid-19 era, three years ago, occasioning a revenue gap amounting to almost Sh200million annually.
"In the last Financial Year, we only managed to collect Sh74 million on land rates against a target of Sh268 million. We are now keen to apply the existing law to ask investors to now pay the arrears to avoid escalating the debts that could lead to caveats when one wants to transact on the land or property," said Kisota
The Executive announced that the Department of Revenue had already issued invoices to many land owners and hoped that they would respond at their earliest opportunity.
"In the past, we have published 100 per cent waivers on land rates and rent arrears and only a few take advantage of this service. We do not have a waiver any time soon, so we expect full settlement on the arrears," said Kisota.
The statement comes in the wake of concerns raised by MCAs from Kajiado North Sub County who claimed the new drive to seek the arrears was contained in a law that they were not fully consulted.
"We were not fully consulted on the land rates. We are opposing this because we are being slapped with invoices that we are not aware of. The executive must stop collecting the land rates," said Olkeri MCA Stephen Ngatho.
Mr Ngatho insisted that they would not accept any new levies on land with freehold titles and urged the government to shelve the new charges.
Nkaimurunya MCA Maina Mutiga expressed fears that many land owners risked losing their land should they fail to fulfil the tax obligations as spelt out in the County Government laws.
"Residents are being invoiced Sh 5,000 for a lend measuring 0.4 acres. Those with large pieces of land will not be able to pay and therefore risk the ownership of their land," said Mr Mutiga.
The land rates demand will also affect metropolitan towns of Ngong,Kiserian,Ongata Rongai and Kitengela towns.
However, Mr Kisota faulted the MCAs for playing politics on a law they were aware of from the word go.
He argued that the laws on rateable land and property were clear and urged the legislators to be honest in their involvement in the law-making process.
"The Kajiado County Rating Act was actually passed in 2016 and the corresponding Finance Act provides for clear guidelines and mechanisms for collection of the applicable rates and other revenue charges," said the Executive.
Mr Kisota further referred to the Finance Act (2023) which clearly outlines the mechanisms for determining the rates and charges payable for each property regardless of tenure.
Last year the county government launched a third-generation Sh133.6 billion County Integrated Development Plan for the next five years aimed to promote equitable and sustainable socio-economic development through efficient resource utilization and inclusive participation.
The county's projected revenue amounts stands at Sh64.5 billion leaving the Lenku's administration with a deficit of Sh71.4 billion to realise the dream. Land rates remain the county's main revenue artery to the revenue department.
