The City Hall in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
City Hall is set to record its worst revenue performance in five years with the county government in line to receive below the Sh10.1 billion posted in the previous financial year.
Official data by the county’s Treasury shows that as at April, the county had only managed to collect Sh8.69 billion with only two months to go to the end of the current 2018/2019 financial year.
The county government performed dismally in the first half of the financial year between July and December 2018, managing to collect only Sh3.63 billion.
In the next three months, City Hall collected a total of Sh4.23 billion where Sh1.7 billion was collected in January, 2019, in February Sh1 billion was received while in the high revenue month of March, only Sh1.53 billion was realised.
In the last quarter of the financial year, the county posted only Sh834.8 million in the month of April. Only revenue for May and June remain for the current financial year to be complete.
REVENUE STREAM
“We will surely not hit even last year’s revenue of Sh10.1 billion recorded as most of the revenue streams have seriously underperformed,” Nairobi County Assembly Budget and Appropriations committee chairman said on Sunday.
Consolidated Annual Reports for counties by the Controller of Budget show that Nairobi County collected a total of Sh33.24 billion between the financial year 2013/2014 and the financial year 2015/2016 at an average of Sh11.08 billion per year. City Hall realised about Sh12 billion in 2016/2017 financial year.
Last year the county recorded only Sh10.1 billion against a target of Sh17.2 billion with Sh9.8 billion collected through JamboPay and the rest through Local Authority Integrated Financial Operations Management Systems (LAIFOMS).
This financial year’s internal (own source) revenue target was set at Sh15.2 billion, a drop of Sh2 billion from the previous financial year’s target of Sh17.2 billion.
“The total approved revenue estimates for the financial year 2018/2019 was Sh32 billion of which 16.5 billion was to be received from external sources while 15.2 billion was to be collected from own source revenue streams,” said Nairobi County Finance and Economic Planning executive Ms Winfred Gathagu in the county government’s mid-year debt management strategy paper for the 2019/2020 financial year.
LOW REVENUE
The official document showed that by the end of December 2018, a total of Sh8.65 billion revenue had been achieved representing 27 percent of the annual target.
Out of the revenue realized, 4.9 billion was received from external revenue, while 3.63 billion, which is 24 percent of annual target, was received from own source revenue streams.
The dominant local revenue streams as at December 2018 were parking fees, building permits, single business permits, rates and house rents which posted 25, 16, 13, 10 and 8 percent of their targets respectively.
“Rates revenue collected was Sh0.83 billion, parking fee was Sh0.9 billion while Sh0.47 billion was realised from Single Business Permit,” states the report.
Low revenue figures from the 136 county revenue streams has always been blamed on weak enforcement and corrupt City Hall officers with the county failing to hit its revenue targets since 2014 when JamboPay was contracted to automate the county’s revenue streams.
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