The Nairobi’s revenue systems have never been audited since its automation in 2013 putting in question the level of financial probity at the Nairobi county government.
This has been revealed in the ongoing investigations by the Ad hoc committee on Revenue Collection.
The committee said the lack of an audit makes it impossible to know the revenue collected.
“We are alarmed to discover that the revenue systems have never been audited since their automation in 2013 making it impossible to accurately determine the actual revenue collected.” The committee said in their statement.
It was further established that there are no documentation details on Nairobi Pay which raises serious concerns as there are no documents to show an agreement between Nairobi City County and the said Nairobi Pay.
Yesterday while appearing before the committee, Web tribe officials told the committee that they handed over the system to the County after their term came to an end in 2019.
They revealed that they gave the logs to the county to run the server which is contrary to what had earlier been revealed by Smart Nairobi’s Chief Officer during a previous grilling.
“We will pay a visit to our servers and see how they look. Because that’s what was used from 2013-2019. We will get to see them including the logins which they said they gave to the county to run but with what is happening now we are yet to know what happens. When they come next week they will tell us who runs the servers and where they are located as all the county officials are and they do not know who runs them. They told me that even changing the password, they have to call someone to do it for them.” The Committee Chairperson and majority leader Peter Imwatok explained.
Imwatok said the anonymous person Benson Njoroge who was mentioned as the contact person at the National government’s ICT ministry when the system is down is a key witness person in the investigations and will be called before the committee to also shed light.
The legislators said no politics should be brought into the investigations by bringing in or mentioning the governor’s name or the CEC’s or even chief officers as they are doing their oversight role as a committee.
As part of the investigations, the committee is expected to make a visit to the Web tribe offices and have a look at what the servers of the system look like and how they operate.
The Ad-Hoc Committee established under standing order No. 211 of the County Assembly, has been diligently pursuing its mandate to address the decline in local revenue and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the current revenue collections systems.
The committee has initiated meetings with key witnesses including, the County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) for Finance and ICT, County Officials, and Service providers like web tribe (Jambo Pay), National Bank (Noveta), and KRA (Nairobi Pay) as well as many other witnesses that the committee intends to call upon to shed light on this very crucial matter.
Nairobians have been called to show up for public participation that has been scheduled between the 13th and 14th to give their views as they have been assured of the truth being uncovered and the issues that have been leading to a decrease in the decrease in revenue brought out.
