City Hall: KRA yet to give us back county revenue collection systems

The Nairobi county government is yet to take control of the county revenue collection systems despite the official handover of the revenue collection functions from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to the county government.

This was revealed during an information communications technology (ICT) committee hearing that was held in the County Assembly on Wednesday.

The revenue collection functions were handed back to the county government after the exit of the Uhuru Kenyatta-era Nairobi Metropolitan Services.

During the hearing, officials from the finance and ICT dockets in the county told the committee that they were clueless about how the revenue system works since they do not have any administrative access to it.

It also emerged that none of the county officials knows where the system servers are located.

Revenue collection functions

Mr Newton Munene, the ICT county executive officer (CEC) told the Assembly committee they do not understand how the system has been operated ever since the county handed over revenue collection functions to KRA.

“We asked where the servers for the system are located and they told us it is in the cloud. We did not even know how it works as a department because decisions were made elsewhere and we knew only through a gazette notice,” Mr Munene told the committee.

The county’s finance CEC Lawrence Wambua also said although they use the system, they do not have any access to it.

“As the finance department, we are only the users of the system. We do not have any administrative access to it. We know that KRA has access to the system and they are maintaining it,” Mr Wambua said.

The county officials would not explain why they do not have control over the system yet KRA handed over all the revenue collection functions to the county.

ICT committee chairperson Fredrick Njogu ordered the county officials to return next week with documentation showing the contract agreement between the county and KRA on the revenue collection system.

Billions of shillings

Nairobi county collects revenue running into billions of shillings every financial year.

The county government has already announced plans to roll out a new revenue collection system known as Nairobi Pay in the next few weeks.

According to Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja, the system developed at a cost of Sh160 million is intended to improve the revenue collection system in Nairobi county to ensure the county meets its revenue targets.

The system will also be rolled out in the 47 county governments after the completion of the pilot phase in Nairobi.

Members of the committee, however, queried how the revenue system will be launched yet due process including a failure by the county government to gazette it and a lack of authorisation from the ICT Authority and Communications Authority (CA).