Kisumu hires revenue collectors after digital platform flops

Kisumu County has resorted to the recruitment of more revenue collectors months after abandoning digitisation of major revenue streams as it seeks to shore up its annual target.

While the county has not indicated the number of people to be hired, 777 candidates have been shortlisted for interviews that have been ongoing from May 26 and expected to end on June 5.

The move comes close to two years after Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o announced the migration from the ticketing system, which he said had been infiltrated by cartels running parallel systems.

The county had also directed that payments by kiosk operators, market traders, parking fees, hospital bills, land rates and trading licences were to be paid through mobile money.

At the time, the county government was targeting to collect an average of between Sh5 billion and Sh7 billion per year compared to its previous five-year performance averaging Sh1 billion.

Finance Executive George Omondi, however, did not respond on what measures the county has taken to stem revenue leakages associated with unscrupulous revenue collectors who took advantage of the manual system.

“Those are very genuine concerns, I will address them,” he said but did not respond by press time.

It is, however, not clear whether the county would maintain its current contract with Strathmore University, which has been helping them to recover Sh20 billion land rate defaulters owed them and business permits dating back to 2008.

Due to the measures put in place aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, the shortlisted candidates would undergo interviews online via Zoom cloud meetings.

“You must have access to reliable internet connectivity on the day of your interview…you should arrange to be in a sufficiently lit, quiet place away from background noise that can hinder the progress of the interview,” said part of the interview guidelines.

The County Public Service Board will conduct the recruitment process.