Nairobi Finance team ordered to present 10-year revenue report to Assembly Adhoc committee
The Nairobi County Assembly Adhoc Committee on Revenue Collection in Nairobi City has expressed concern over suspected revenue leakages, misdeclaration of revenues by the Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja administration and demanded for a ten-year revenue collection report.
The committee led by Majority Leader in the assembly who doubles as the Makongeni Member of the County Assembly (MCA) Peter Imwatok has asked the county Finance team led by the Finance County Executive Committee Member (CECM) Charles Kerich to present to table revenue reports by the county for the past 10 years and other contracts with revenue service providers.
The committee started the investigations today but did not proceed with interrogating Kerich’s team after they failed to come with the documents they had been requested to appear before the committee with.
Kerich said he received the invitation to appear before the committee late shifting blame on acting County Secretary Patrick Analo for late communication.
He requested seven days to prepare the required documents which was termed as too long by the committee.
Imwatok said the relevant witnesses in the ongoing investigations will be appearing before the committee to shed more light on whatever they know.
“We are firm as a committee and are united because we have been given a mandate by the whole assembly under Standing Order 211. The relevant witness will come before the committee. They include the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) commissioners; the people in charge of domestic revenue.” Imwatok said.
The committee said they will investigate and reveal how tax and revenue paid by Nairobian are collected and utilized and where the systems are located no matter the circumstances that may come along.
The chairman stated that since 2015 during Kidero’s tenure, no other governor has been able to collect more than Sh12.5 billion and that’s the reason why they are working as a committee.
“Since 2015, there has never been a governor that has been able to collect more than Sh 12 billion until the recent one of Sh10.6 billion for the 2022/23 financial year.
Red flags were raised over intermittent system failure of the Nairobi Revenue Services (NRS), with worrying shortfalls over amounts of revenue collected cumulatively from the various revenue streams that led to the assembly forming a special committee to investigate the issue.
The daily collection of Nairobi has allegedly dropped to less than Sh10 million.
Nairobi Revenue System was set up at a cost of Sh160 million and came into use during the reign of defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services that took over some county roles.
