By RAWLINGS OTIENO

Nairobi County government is losing Sh250,000 daily in car parking fees through corruption and inefficient staff.

Some chief officers reportedly “own” streets supposed to pay tax to City Hall, but the money goes into the pockets of a few individuals.

The streets are allegedly “owned” by officials from the City Planning, City Inspectorate and City Engineering departments.

According to City by-laws, matatus should not occupy Accra road, Dubois and Latema roads, but matatus park, pick and drop passengers from these spots. An independent taskforce formed during the reign of former Town Clerk Philip Kisia to investigate why City Hall was losing money from the car park section, led to interdiction of several culprits, but they have since resurfaced.

The 12-member team led by Accountant In-Charge Tom Tinega unearthed a scheme by some high level officers behind single business permits, car park receipt books, licenses and land rate receipts.

It is estimated that the council lost upto Sh400 million from the unscrupulous deals between businessmen and City Hall officials.

An official within City Hall who requested not to be named, told The Standard that the Tinega-led Taskforce report ruffled some chief operating officers the wrong way.

He said when Mr Tinega was frustrated, and took study leave for almost a year and while he was absent, the operating officers ordered restructuring of the car park attendants.

“The taskforce reported that up to Sh400 million was being lost due to some cartels colluding with the some City Hall officials. This action was not palatable and so they decided to restructure the section and they almost succeeded by understaffing the section,” the official said.

And now the car park section has shortage of attendants following the reshuffle seen towards sabotaging the work of the car park revenue department. The department has at least 260 attendants to collect car park fees, falling short by 100.

Evade the taxation

The 260 attendants cover 12,000 designated parking areas within the county, but only 8,000 can be well covered as some motorists evade the taxation by parking as early as 5am and leave the town as late as 9pm when the attendants have retired.

The Standard established some attendants are on the payroll but the system does not detail the exact positions they work or how much they collect daily.

City Hall parking fees includes Sh140 for small cars, lorries Sh500, trailers part with Sh2,000 per day while reserved parking fee attract Sh120,000 per year.

The statistics from City Hall indicate last month alone, the department collected Sh66 million in parking fees, but the figure could have been high through efficiency.

Our investigations also revealed that 2,500 individual oil transport companies have not been paying parking fees.