The contract with Nairobi on revenue collection is still on, NBK Claims

The National Bank of Kenya (NBK) now claims the contract with the Nairobi City County government still runs till next year because of the unpaid areas owed to them by the county.

This was revealed on Monday this week when the bank officials appeared before the Nairobi City County Assembly Ad hoc committee on revenue collection.

The bank said though there is a letter indicating the termination of the contract last year through the county attorney, the unpaid commission owed to them shows the contract is still in place even though they are not in charge of revenue collection.

“We received the letter notifying the end of the contract by the end of six months as per the signed contract. But according to NBK the contract still runs as the county has not remitted to us the pending bills owed to us.” Director of Legal Services at NBK Samuel Mundia said.

It emerged that NBK continued with the collection of revenue for the city even after the transfer of deeds when the Kenya Revenue Authority took over.

The NBK team revealed that they were sub-contracted by KRA to continue with the collection.

On Friday last week, the committee will be seeking to answer the query of who the county owes the commission claimed by the bank as KRA was in charge of the revenue collection when the Nairobi Metropolitan Services took over.

Grilling of the National Bank team revealed that between 2020-2022 the lender was transferring money to the county revenue account while KRA was the one in charge of the revenue collection making it a grey area.

“National Bank has said there was an arrangement between them and KRA when the national revenue collector was finding its footage in revenue collection for the city county. Looking at the documents provided the county was clean when involved with them. They were not paid after the transfer of deeds and this is where we need to know who the county owes; if it is KRA or NBK.” Peter Imwatok, the majority leader and chair of the committee said.

The Kenya Revenue Authority delegation that was serving during the NMS tenure is set to appear before Ad hoc on Friday, December 15, 2023.

The delegation Anastacia Githumba, Deputy Director KRA was also forwarded to the county by KRA after the exit of NMS to help in the operations of the Nairobi Pay as revealed earlier on by the County Executive Committee Member for finance Charles Kerich.

Further, The Informer Media Group established a variation in the amounts claimed to have been collected by the National Bank of Kenya and what was reported by the Controller of Budget (CoB) when the lender was in charge of the collection.

The bank promised to share the statements showing the amount they collected and forward them to the County revenue accounts.

The National Bank during their term of revenue collection had subcontracted two service providers Nouveta for the system and the company that was in charge of short code service.

The two are also set to appear before Ad hoc when NBK appears again before the Committee.

The ad hoc committee on revenue collection is currently investigating the underperformance of the City Hall revenue collection as the county is unable to meet its revenue targets.

The committee now has less than two months to submit a report to the Assembly after 90 days of investigation.