Businesses, property owners have until March 31 to pay for rates and licenses

City Hall. The county government will not extend the deadline for paying land rates

NAIROBI, KENYA: City Hall will not extend the deadline for paying land rates and licences, County Finance Director Danvas Makori has said.

On Monday, Makori said the March 31 deadline they had given property owners to pay up remains.

He said the defaulters would have their properties auctioned.

“People have traditionally been waiting until after the March 31 deadline so that we can waive penalty charges.

“There will be no waivers this time around. We will stick to the deadline,” said Makori.

He said only 43 per cent of businesses had paid for their unified business permits as of Friday last week, terming the figure as low.

“You should not wait for us to enforce the payment. I encourage all business owners to pay within the stipulated time to avoid incurring interests and other penalties,” he said.

The county’s fiscal strategy paper shows that City Hall has failed to meet its revenue targets since 2013, partly due to non-compliance by business and property owners.

Deficit

It states that for the 2015-16 financial year, City Hall collected Sh11.7 billion against an estimated Sh15.2 billion. This represented a Sh3.5 billion deficit.

Additionally, the county failed to reach its revenue projections by 12.8 per cent in the 2014/15 financial year and 23.1 per cent in the 2013/14 fiscal year.

The report blamed challenges in collection of internal revenue for the shortfall. The shortfall is expected to delay projects and programmes.

Makori, however, said revenue “leakages” were due to the manual system, adding that the almost fully-automated revenue collection system had sealed the loopholes.

“Since automation started, there has been an increase of over Sh700 million per month. In January, we collected Sh1.6 billion and Sh1.7 million in February,” he said.

He said city residents did not need to go to City Hall to make payments because they had automated their services.

“They should make use of their phones in making payments,” he said.

He said City Hall targeted Sh2 billion from advertisements and Sh600 million in rent from its properties in the current financial year.

Parking officers

City Hall is also expected to deploy more parking officers to ensure motorists do not default.

Data from City Hall shows that over 2,000 vehicles default in paying parking fees daily, translating to a daily loss of about Sh600,000.

This has been blamed on weak enforcement of rules or lack thereof, coupled with numerous under dealings. 

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