Nairobi MCAs have exposed the rot in the county Revenue Collection System.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Kileleshwa MCA Robert Alai said that while the county has 135 revenue collection streams, half are dysfunctional.
The Ward Rep said that faceless individuals run the system but singled out one Benson who allegedly works with two others.
Benson, Alai said, is not known and is believed to be stealing taxpayers’ monies through the system whose servers are in an unknown place.
According to the Ward Rep who sits in the Energy & ICT Committee, the cartels running the revenue system are so powerful that they are intimidating the Assembly as well as Governor Johnson Sakaja.
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Alai stated that entities that could help run the system such as the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), are helpless in this situation.
The MCAs want the President William Ruto to intervene and have the revenue collection system onboarded to eCitizen, as have other government services.
This comes a day after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) singled out Nairobi County for allegedly interfering with the revenue collection system.
The watchdog said that senior officials in county governments are using the revenue collection system to redirect county funds through collusion with service providers, leading to the loss of public funds.
EACC observed that senior county officials have user rights on automated systems, granting them the authority to modify recorded revenue amounts, facilitating misappropriation of public funds.
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“Whereas deployment of integrated revenue management systems in our counties is aimed at enhancing efficiency and accountability, the systems are increasingly being manipulated to divert public funds to private individuals through collusion involving Governors, senior county officials, and companies providing the revenue management service,” said EACC.
“In this emerging pattern of automated looting of public funds, contracts for revenue management systems are designed with inbuilt corruption ranging from irregular tender awards favouring entities linked to county officials to fraudulent dealings within the automated systems.”
Also on EACC’s radar are Narok, Kajiado and Kilifi counties.
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