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{
"id": 1406066,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1406066/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
"slug": "bonny-khalwale"
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"content": "moment, I would like to commend the national Government on the issue of raising revenue. If they had failed on this issue, counties would by now have collapsed. I appeal to Kenyans who are in court today, who are making it through legal fights in court for the KRA to perform, to take it easy to allow the KRA to employ 6,000 professionals that they wish to employ, so that we improve on revenue collection. The KRA does not collect money outside the provisions of the Finance Act. It is up to us to allow them to have enough staff. If we do not like the provisions in the Finance Act that they use to collect money, we can rectify. Why am I commending the national Government? In financial year 2013/2014 – I know Mr. Njenga can remember this with nostalgia – we were collecting Kshs0.8 trillion. However, last year, we collected a whopping Kshs2.4 trillion. We will collect more this year. That corresponds to tripling of that amount. Do they not deserve commendation? Are we not proud of the KRA? They are doing a good job. Fast forward, to collection of revenue by county governments, I would like to talk about what is famously called own source revenue. What is wrong with counties? I do not understand. I bemoan this. According to my Principal Research Officer, Mr. Samuel Muhati, who prepared for me this report, there are only three counties that are putting an effort in own source revenue, namely, the County of Narok, congratulations Gov. Ntutu. We also have the County of Kirinyaga, congratulations Gov. Anne Waiguru. The third one is, guess which county? It is Wajir County, despite the challenges there. Gov. Abdullahi found that the county was collecting Kshs46 million. However, last year, he was able to collect Kshs160 million. You know there are limited resources in Wajir. I am so proud of Gov. Abdullahi. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, we can give some accolades to Gov. Anne Waiguru. She found the County of Kirinyaga collecting Kshs180 million, but now she has grown it to Kshs600 million. That young lady is working. That is the only good thing I can say about own source revenue by our counties. My question is: what went wrong with Nairobi City County? Given the contribution of Nairobi City County to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country at 57 per cent, it means the GDP of Nairobi City County is bigger than the GDP of the Republic of Rwanda, Burundi, Gambia, Guinea and many African countries. With that kind of GDP, where does own source revenue disappear to? Again, according to a research by my Principal Research Officer, Mr. Samuel Muhati, he confirmed to me that it is the position of the CRA and the CoB. If Nairobi City County was to perform, they have the potential to declare a collection of Kshs89 billion per year. However, they do not do so. Today, we were in a presidential function where the Governor of Nairobi City County told us that he has no money and I was wondering where their own source revenue goes. We give him Kshs20 billion. Gov. Sakaja, in my other life, I am your maternal uncle. I urge you to make the youth proud. Collect and declare the own source revenue by Nairobi City County. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}