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{
    "id": 921923,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/921923/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 379,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen.M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "Planning, IPPD is supported by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and LAIFOMS is not supported by anyone. When we had the Governor for Kirinyaga County, who in her past life was involved in setting up these automated systems at the national and county level, she confirmed that support for LAIFOMS had been discontinued. It was interesting to learn that her Kirinyaga County was still using LAIFOMS for recognition of own source revenue. It is risky for the counties to use systems whose source codes are unverified and whose support cannot be guaranteed. If LAIFOMS collapses one day, a lot of counties will suffer. We have seen a number of own source revenue systems in our counties. One poignant case is that of Nairobi City County. In Nairobi City County, the Auditor- General flagged certain issues with their automated revenue collection system. He said that the system that they were using at that point was not transparent. Officers in Nairobi City County Government had no visibility and access to the system hence they could not generate reports. If they wanted to get cash collection reports or utilisation reports, they had to go to the system vendor. It was not clear whether the system vendor was doctoring the reports or whether he was giving them the accurate report. This is not a trivial matter. When we came out of the last general election, there was a call that we needed to open the servers. When a constitutional body that was mandated to set up an information platform with the qualities similar to the qualities that have been proposed by Sen. (Dr.) Zani was unable to provide transparent access to the servers, the Supreme Court ruled that the outcome of that election could not be ascertained. Therefore, Kenyans were subjected to a fresh round of elections. Nairobi City County had been collecting Kshs10 billion every year using a system that was not transparent and it was using servers that could not be opened to the users. As a result, the County Assembly of Nairobi City acted on the recommendations of the Auditor-General and it recommended that Nairobi City County Government terminates the contract with the system service provider. When the matter came to the Senate, the Senate took the same position as the Nairobi County Assembly. Unfortunately, the Governor, who was the loudest critic of that solution when he was a Senator, was the first one to extend the term or duration of that service in Nairobi City County. When we pressed on further, Nairobi City County Government said that they would now host the revenue collection systems in-house. They ended up purchasing the source code and put it in-house without going through competitive tendering. This is one issue that the CPAIC or the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) needs to look into because a system collecting Kshs10 billion every year cannot be implemented in such a pedestrian manner. If that is allowed, all hell will break loose. The commissions that are being paid to the system vendors vary a lot. There is a county where for every Kshs100 collected, the service provider takes Kshs7 for no effort. That is because they do not go out to collect the revenue. They just provide a platform. There needs to be some pricing module. In the case of Nairobi City County, it was not 7 per cent. It was something like point two or one per cent, but there needs to be some consistency. When we went to Lamu County, a county that had received Kshs3 billion from the national coffers, we realised that it had three revenue collection systems. We The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}