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{
"id": 1400461,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400461/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "people have since learnt that it is impossible to bully such an administration that is determined to do the right thing, though not popular at times, but the right thing in long-run. We must also begin that conversation and ensure that all the taxes being levied and paid for by our people in the county governments are accounted for. It should become impossible for people to pilfer electronically paid resources because there is a trace and the taxes are paid using a system that is accountable and from reputable firms, not just having systems that have something that is colloquially referred to by Governors as a “T” junction. It means that from the source where the citizen is paying to the bank account, there is a “T” somewhere facilitating a leakage, giving the Governor of the County a chance to leak something small out of it. We need reputable firms and that is why we provide it in legislation, so that we can provide the standards. Which companies can provide and is it possible to have one system that applies across the counties and is controlled by the county governments? There is a very lazy argument that is being peddled, stating that if we have a system applied across the 47 counties, it is a clawback on devolution. What is the problem? What citizens want is to pay their taxes and see them being used prudently in their counties. Nobody is saying that you propose a system where those resources will come to the National Government kitty. We want it to be traceable, verifiable and a means through which citizens know that, for example, if a poor old lady selling Esaga in Keumbu market, where Sen. Omogeni comes from, pays Kshs20 as the market rate for the day, then that Kshs20 goes to the coffers of the Nyamira County Government and it translates as service for her. This is so that we do not just collect taxes from ordinary citizens and because a good amount of it has been pilfered, then there is no commensurate service for the same. How many centers do you know where people from the county government collect taxes, but if you go to that town you cannot find a toilet or sanitation facilities, yet the county governments continue to collect taxes on that market? This is why as the Senate, we must take the lead in this conversation. If we leave this to the imagination of our county governments, then we will be abandoning our responsibility as the House, which is charged with the responsibility of passing legislation that enhances and entrenches devolution. This is one such legislation. Article 209(5) of our Constitution confers on us, as Parliament, the powers to regulate the exercise of fiscal responsibility by county governments. This is what I was speaking about a few minutes ago. It is important to understand that counties are charged with numerous functions and responsibilities in the Fourth Schedule of our Constitution. The imposition of property taxes on lands and buildings by county governments will be essential for generating local revenue to fund critical public services; infrastructure and community development initiatives. 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."
},
{
"id": 1400462,
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"text_counter": 150,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "Above that, it also provides a fair and equitable means of taxation, ensuring that property owners contribute to financing essential services proportionate to the value of their properties. Many strong institutions that have got the financial muscle are able to negotiate and collude with land officers in various counties to pay taxes less than what is due to them. Taxation must be fair. You must be taxed an amount that is commensurate to the value of what you are holding and the benefit that you get from a county government. If you are charging a boda boda operator or a mama mboga in a market Kshs20 or Kshs50 to operate, then within the same market somebody who has a wholesale store or a supermarket is being charged Kshs500 as a license for the entire financial year, then it brings to the fore the conversation about equity. Is it fair? Is it just? This provides the opportunity for us, as a country, to have this conversation and say that taxation by our various forms and arms of county government is fair and can be traced. We have challenges, those of us who come from counties that have multinationals operating within the area. Those of us that come from the tea growing areas, the land rates that they pay are valuations of as late as 1994 when I was a six-year old boy. I have come to the Senate right now and they are still paying that amount because of the absence of such a law. That is why this is very personal to some of us and we need to pass this legislation very quickly, so that there is a standardized format, determined and passed nationally here at the national Government, so that counties are left to implement and collect the resources. This should not be left to negotiations. In the tea subsector, when we go to meetings with them, they say that they have agreed with a certain county government, but did not agree with another. We do not want these backend agreements. We want agreements that can be verified, scrutinized and can easily be traced back. Parts 7 to 20 of the Bill - as I move towards a conclusion - contain the provision of the duty to levy rates by county government and the principles they need to adhere to in accordance to the Public Finance Management Act (PFM). It defines who the owner is and the mandate and requirements for ensuring that the rates are paid. It even provides for forms of rating, the notice of rating, ratings track, the notice of rate payments and remissions, discounts, waivers and enforcement of payment of rates. This is the engine of this legislation. It is providing for all that I have described earlier. Clauses 21 to 25 of the Bill provide for the appointment and powers of valuers, which includes the criteria for one to be appointed as a valuer and give responsibilities to these valuers, so that the Chief Government Valuer concerning standardization, harmonization, preparation and implementation of the valuation of roles across various counties. I have spent significant time explaining and giving context to why we need to have this standardized across all the counties. It should not be different from Kisumu, Kericho, Mombasa, and all these other places. The Chief Government Valuer sets in consultation with county governments, so that the valuation role is standardized. In my county, Sen. Mumma, you see, admire and take pictures of all the land as you drive towards Kericho Town. The valuation role that is being used was last updated in 1994. This is why we are providing for the standardization of the exercise, so that we 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."
},
{
"id": 1400463,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400463/?format=api",
"text_counter": 151,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "know the frequency of updating the master valuation role with our various county governments. Within what time should it be updated, so that the same can be are property owners in Kisumu who, on one file, you find the valuation for the owner, reads the value of 1990 and the next one, since they purchased it recently, they have a more recent value of 2023. Is that fair? It is not fair. This is why we are proposing to have this standardized. Clauses 26 to 36 of the Bill contain provisions on the valuation rating. This part provides the general basis of valuation, declaration of ratable areas, methods to be used for valuation, preparation and contents of valuation roles, supplementary valuation, and alteration. Publication of role, objections thereof, and exceptions are provided for in part. The uncontested draft valuation role and the draft supplementary role are also provided for in Clause 35 of the Bill. Clauses 37 to 53 contain the provisions of the national rating tribunal. This part seeks to establish a tribunal with part-time members. The jurisdiction of the tribunal is specified under Clause 39. The part also provides for the conduct of proceedings, the quorum, declaration of disclosure of interest, powers of the tribunal, remuneration, penalty or failure to comply with the tribunal's lawful order and appeal mechanisms from the tribunal. This is the setting up of the tribunal that will listen to these disputes. However, I am a bit concerned by the issues of tribunals. It is good that Senior Counsel Sen. Omogeni and many other lawyers are here. The reason we set up tribunals in our law is because it is expected that they will be the first court of reporting when there is a dispute. However, there is an emerging practice where Judges, either in the High Court or magistrates, are listening to matters that have not originally been dealt with at the tribunal level, for example, a sports dispute. Political parties also complain that there are many instances where you find a Judge making a determination over a matter that has not been discussed at a particular tribunal. Environmental tribunals exist. You will find petitioners rushing to the High Court and the Judge makes pronouncements on this issue. Then why do we set up tribunals? The reason why we set up these tribunals is that it is believed that these little courts have got the known expertise on that particular field, better than any other individual outside that particular jurisdiction. They can dispense, listen to the issues that are being canvassed and make proper determination. Therefore, this is an area of serious concern. I hope that the Chief Justice, together with those that serve in the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), will consider and properly issue guidelines to the members of judiciary on the various tribunals. This is so that the particular tribunal that we are setting up does not suffer the fate like many of these tribunals that we have in the country that are often by- passed. This is normally done by the petitioners who head to High Court and immediately get attention on their matters without first going through the set procedure. 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."
},
{
"id": 1400464,
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"text_counter": 152,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Cheruiyot",
"speaker_title": "The Senate Majority Leader",
"speaker": {
"id": 13165,
"legal_name": "Aaron Kipkirui Cheruiyot",
"slug": "aaron-cheruiyot"
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"content": "Part 5 of the Bill basically establishes the National Rating Tribunal that will hear and handle all those disputes. Part 6 of the Bill are just miscellaneous provisions and notices of repeal of CAP 266 and 267, which is a guiding law even as we speak today on these matters of rating. I do not know how old this particular law is. It must be extremely old. Finally, Clauses 56 and 57 of the Bill contain the proposed regulations and savings and transition of any written national and county laws relating to valuation. Just to preserve, if there have been counties that have been diligent to set up their own national rating or county specific valuation roles, this Bill actually proposes to save such and does not delete them. Therefore, with those very many remarks, I want to urge my colleague Senators to debate this Bill and make critical additions and proposals on how to better it. This is for the betterment of our county governments. It is to cure a real challenge that all our 47 county governments continue to struggle with. Madam Temporary Speaker, with those many remarks, I beg to move and request the Senator for Tana River County, Sen. Mungatana, to second."
},
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"text_counter": 153,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Majority Leader. Proceed, Sen. Mungatana."
},
{
"id": 1400466,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "Thank you, Madam Temporary Speaker. I take this opportunity to thank the Senate Majority Leader, who is the Mover of this Bill, for being very eloquent in his usual style. He has explained this Bill very well. I know that the Senators who are listening will agree with me that we are here to discuss about Own Source Revenue (OSR) for the counties where we come from. OSR has become a real big challenge because many counties, including my county, have not really had a law such as this that will allow proper access to funds from property taxes. This also applies to developed counties like Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Uasin-Gishu. Madam Temporary Speaker, when you look at their collection through the rating process, it has a lot of challenges. This is because the legal framework for collection and standardization does not exist. Nonetheless, property rating is one of the most fundamental and reliable ways of making good the targets of OSR. When we had the debate on the Finance Act, one of my relatives who lives in the US called and asked me what the big fuss was about. As I was trying to explain, he told me that in their State where they live in the United States (US), they depend on property taxes to finance all their activities. They are really focused on rating and that is what helps them to finance activities within their own State. Therefore, they could not relate why we were having a big fight about the Finance Bill in this place. This brings to fore the question of rating and OSR for our counties. In our County, we are third lowest when it comes to the collection of OSR. Despite the fact that we have a very large land mass in Tana River County, we have not been able to benefit from rating that land. Madam Temporary Speaker, we depend on what we collect from auctions from goats, cows and camels, which is a very little revenue. They also go to the market to collect money, which is little revenue. 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."
},
{
"id": 1400467,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400467/?format=api",
"text_counter": 155,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "The county governments also become very rough sometimes. Even before they pass their own Finance Act, they go to bar and shop owners within the trading centres and they tell them that the collection rates on various things has increased. For instance, what they were doing in our headquarters in Hola. They tell the traders and the business people that they have increased the rates even before the Finance Act came into effect. If you do not pay, they are accompanied by the Kanjo, and they put a padlock on your business premise. This practise shows the desperation and problems of raising OSR in my County of Tana River. The answer to these problems is to increase the base upon which we can raise OSR. This Rating Act that standardizes how we shall collect charges from properties across the entire 47 counties is going to be of great help to a county such Tana River. I support this Bill very much because we do not need to increase the taxes, charges or levies that is upon the businessman who is selling in his kiosk, bar or little supermarket. Tana River County will benefit from this Bill if we pass it into law, in that, the huge land mass is going to be rateable. Those huge investors who we welcome to our county will have a predictable rate at which they will be paying their levies every year when it is due for payment. We have huge irrigation schemes in Tana River County. Do they pay to the county government anything? No! We have huge programmes and private investors who are supposed to bring investment. We welcome them, but they are also supposed to contribute to the county government. Madam Temporary Speaker, they are not paying the county government because the legal framework does not exist. Today, when we pass this Rating Bill, we shall create a larger base, not just for Tana River, but the rest of the counties in this nation. We will now be able to collect the levies that are due in an organized manner and they will increase the base. We know that there is a very serious problem of leakage of what county governments collect. Additionally, even the little that they are collecting, like what the Majority Leader has said, there is something called the T-Junction. Madam Temporary Speaker, they collect the charges from the traders, but instead of that money coming directly to the County Revenue Fund (CRF) account, there is a T-Junction created there where illegal charges are made. The juice is supped in little amounts, so people become very wealthy. You cannot explain how they became wealthy because they do not have a business or factory, they are not trading or even registered anywhere, yet you see them having a lot of money to splash around because they steal from the T- junction. Madam Temporary Speaker, even as we discuss the National Rating Bill (National Assembly Bills No.55 of 2022), we must empower counties within the same Act. We should be creative enough to create a mechanism within that legal 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."
},
{
"id": 1400468,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400468/?format=api",
"text_counter": 156,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "framework that will force money that will be collected through rating to go directly to the County Revenue Fund (CRF) accounts. We have technology in this time and age that we live in. We should not leave it to County Revenue officers to go to properties of people or those large investors in Tana River or any other county, to collect cash by writing papers and giving one type of paper saying it is the correct one. It could be the fake one and so money that is paid does not reach the CRF accounts. When we used to have county council, more money was being collected. Now that we have county governments, less money is being collected. I believe that Senators here will apply their minds, so that we create a system that will enable funds to go directly to the CRF account. We should create a system using technology that will make sure that money goes directly where it is supposed to be. The hope in this law is to create a legal framework that will ensure counties like ours, where we have huge pieces of land, attract investors. Some of them are Government and private bodies. In a predictable manner, they will know the amount and the law. They will not need to talk to anyone because they will be paying electronically when it is due. They will not need favours from governors, County Executive Committee Members (CECMs) in charge of Finance or County Revenue officers. They will be dealing directly with CRF accounts, so that when the time comes, they know how to pay. The creation within this framework must have within it an aspect of technology when it comes to collection. We should not just leave it a bit hanging there. Otherwise, this law is a good law for our counties. From my perspective, where we come from, especially because we have massive land and little population and people who have come to invest there, but they are not paying rates, this National Rating Act will enable county governments to collect enough. This is so that charges that they impose using the Finance Act on the local wananchi in the small towns can be reduced to a small contribution, so that big investors can benefit our counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, my other point in seconding this Bill is that when we are here looking for ways and means to make our counties function effectively, we have saboteurs within county governments’ systems. Some are elected while others are appointed leaders whose sole purpose is to milk monies that get into their hands. I am disappointed because our Tana River was listed by the Auditor-General, Nancy Gathungu, as one of the counties that have adverse opinion in the financial statements for the year ending 30th June, 2023. When you see a county such as ours committing Kshs450 million to pay legal fees, yet their own source revenue is so little, there is no accountability in those fees. There is no documentation according to the Auditor-General, yet people are just still walking around. The Auditor-General said Kshs22 million was paid for roads, but when they went there, they did not see them. Therefore, there was no value for money that went to Tana River County. Contractors and county government officers who participated in that crime are still walking free. They are known, yet nothing is happening to them. There is Kshs100 million that was unaccounted for in the year ending June 2023 for local travel because documentation is missing. People’s justifications for those travels 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."
},
{
"id": 1400469,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1400469/?format=api",
"text_counter": 157,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Mungatana, MGH",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "are missing. When we have a new mechanism for extending own source revenue into our counties, what is it we will have in this Act that will make sure those pilferers will not walk straight? There was once an ambassador in Kenya from the United States of America (USA) who said they steal and vomit on our shoes. It is that kind of ugliness that we see documented in some of our counties. The other day, the same Government reports said 33 accounts are being operated in Tana River County but they cannot be explained, yet people are just walking, driving nice cars and having nice houses. As a Senate, we need to start taking serious actions against some of these officers in the counties. Even as we pass this National Rating Bill and make efforts to increase the ability for counties to collect revenue, it will be failure on our part if we do not put mechanisms that are deterrent for those who will think that this is another revenue stream we have created for them to collect funds in the counties. Madam Temporary Speaker, as I second this Bill, I pray that we will put in our thoughts, not just in creating a technology system that will protect the funds, but also ensure deterrent punishments that will make those people who are involved in criminal activities not to imagine that the Senate has passed for them another eating line. We should have in this law a serious deterrent punishment for those who will find it another opportunity to dip their hands in the counties’ funds. Madam Temporary Speaker, with all those many remarks, I beg to second this Bill. I pray that Senators who are listening to me and those who will have an opportunity to read this Bill shall bring necessary amendments to make it better. Those who have better ideas will better this law, but we must make sure that we pass it as soon as possible. I thank you."
},
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"id": 1400470,
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"text_counter": 158,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Veronica Maina",
"speaker_title": "The Temporary Speaker",
"speaker": null,
"content": " Thank you, Senator."
}
]
}