County revenue collections have improved, reveals a fact checking firm

A research by a Kenyan-based fact-checking firm, PesaCheck, has revealed that county governments have performed well in their revenue collection in the past three financial years.

The study reveals that county governments have been able to collect at least 10% of the total revenue shares they get. Equitable revenue shares and grants formulate the remaining percentage in the budgetary allocation of the counties.

As an instance, in 2013/2014 financial year, counties collected a total amount of sh26.3 billion, then Sh 33.9 in 2014/2015, and another Sh35 billion in the 2015/2016 financial year. The research adds that these figures represent 12.2%, 13% and 11.9% in the respective corresponding financial years.

The research was meant to verify the accuracy of an allegation that was made by the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich in Mombasa, where he linked county governments to wastage due to their poor revenue collection.

 Speaking at the Legislative Summit in Mombasa barely a month ago, CS Rotich alleged that counties draw 90-95% of the revenue from the national treasury. And, that this lowers the culture of accountability and limiting wastage.

But the fact-checking firm has come up with a research that debunks Rotich’s allegations. And on the contrary, the research dated May 1 shows how the revenue collection by the counties are improving.

An extract from a statement from Pesa Check on the issue reads in part:

 "PesaCheck has fact-checked these claims with the input of International Budget Partnership and finds them to be false.We can see that the percentage of local revenue raised by the counties in relation to the total revenue is above the 10 per cent claimed by the Deputy Controller of Budget and also above the 5 -10 per cent claimed by the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary.”

Article 209 of the Kenyan Constitution allows the county governments to impose charges on their services and such may have formed the platform for revenue collection in many counties. But the constitution prohibits county governments from levying taxes such as income tax, value added tax on commodities and excise duties.