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Nairobi County Assembly has expressed concerns over the transparency and accountability of the city's revenue collection system.

The assembly's Energy and ICT Committees on Friday claimed that one year down the line, the Governor Johnson Sakaja-led administration doesn't have access to the system collecting revenue on behalf of the county.

The revelations come at a time when the EACC listed Nairobi as one of the counties with serious accountability deficits in their revenue management systems.

"It is instructive that we found a complete lack of transparency in the entire manner in which the Nairobi Countys revenue is being collected, reported and accounted for," said Robert Alai, Kileleshwa MCA.

Alai who is the vice chair of the PAC committee noted with concern that the Finance Department at the executive has no clue or control over how revenue collection is managed in Nairobi.

"CEC for Finance is helpless and even the Chief Officer and Directors arent aware what is happening. This must stop!" he stated.

The committees in a statement also noted with concern the opacity of Nairobi Countys revenue collection.

They listed seven irregularities in the management of the Nairobi Revenue System.

The MCAs claimed that the current and the previous CeC for Finance are not aware of the current collector and manager of the revenue system in the County, popularly known as the Nairobi Revenue System (NRS).

It was also revealed that the Finance and ICT sectors under the executive do not know where the physical servers of the NRS are including details of the cloud servers.

"The Finance executive members do not have administrative rights to the current revenue collection on the system," reads the statement.

The MCAs also claimed that it is not clear how many bank accounts are linked with the revenue collection system.

More shocking details are that the MCAs claim that there is currently no valid contract between Nairobi City County and Nairobi Revenue System(NRS) as the principal collector as they emerged before the end of the Nairobi Metropolitan Service term.

"When the Nairobi Metropolitan term expired (NMS), all functions ought to have been reversed to the County Government, yet very suspicions, there are concerns or sub-contraction of revenue collection by KRA then to Nairobi Revenue System in unclear and un-procedural way," reads the statement.

The MCAs also noted there has never been a complete audit of all revenue systems deployed in Nairobi City County since the advent of devolution to provide the accountability the public needs on this key infrastructure.

Alai noted that all 135 revenue streams are automated through NRS, so when the system is down, everything is down.

The MCAs said they were optimistic that Nairobi can raise more as much as Sh43 billion annually from its revenue sources.

"The drive to automate government services and make them available online is commendable. AutomaAon shouldnt end on the revenue streams. Non-revenue functions automation is an aspect forgotten in the campaign by the President," Alai said.

In March 2023 it was revealed that the Kenya Revenue Authority is still in charge of the revenue collection at Nairobi City County.

This is despite the current administration coming into power last year in August.

Nairobi Finance executive Charles Kerich said that despite the transition process between the then NMS and City Hall coming to an end in November last year, the revenue system has never been handed back to the county and they are still in the transfer process.

Kerich also said that only a few individuals in the finance sector and ICT have viewership rights of the Nairobi Revenue System and they follow to see the revenue being collected in the day.

The system is yet to be transferred to the county. We were only given the viewership rights and we are able to check the revenue being collected, he said then.

The finance boss further revealed that from their end as city hall, they currently do not know the location of the system servers.

We do not know the physical location though and as it has been stated, the process of transfer is yet to begin, Kerich revealed.

He was speaking during a committee meeting between the ICT committee and the Nairobi ICT and Finance and economic sectors.

KRA was mandated to collect the countys revenue when NMS was instituted.

However, since NMS tenure came to an end, the Collection of revenue was to be transferred back to the county.

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Nairobi MCAs raise red flag over city revenue collection - The Star Kenya