Following the recent controller of budget reports for the first 2 quarters of the 2023/2024 Financial year where Machakos recorded the lowest revenue in 4 years, Machakos MCAs sought to unearth the causes.
The finance and revenue collection committee in their report found out the causes of the decline include the collection of revenue in cash and depositing in Mpesa pay bill later, Collusion and pocketing of revenue by revenue officers, Inadequate services provided at county facilities mainly at slaughterhouses and at quarries where roads are in a poor state.
Other causes identified by the committee are Inadequate guidelines of operations such as operating hours for slaughterhouses, transportation of quarry materials beyond the working time of revenue officers and failure to pay officers overtime, Inadequate monitoring and keeping of records including a lack of gadgets to verify payment of revenue via Mpesa and not keeping a record of lorries from National Cement Company that pass through the pay points.
The committee tasked the County Executive Committee Member, Finance, Economic
Planning, Revenue Management Onesmus Kuyu to provide a report to the assembly on how it has addressed the reasons /areas that have led to the decline of revenue collection.
“Fully automate revenue collection across the county and embrace cashless revenue
collection to reduce cases of revenue leakage. Encourage citizens to pay revenue using the prescribed cashless channels and to report those officers collecting revenue in cash.” The finance committee recommended.
“Enhancing revenue monitoring in quarry sites and other areas of revenue collection and deal with the issues of revenue and enforcement officers who have been colluding with traders to rob the county revenue.” The report by the Francis Kitaka-led committee went on.
Further, the committee noted the National Cement revenue waiver of April 2017 was irregular as it was against the provision of Articles 185 and 210 of the constitution and that the Machakos County Tax Waivers Administration Act of 2021 voided any waivers before it.
The full report is available on the Machakos County Assembly Website.
