County allays fears over loss of revenue due to faulty system

County Treasury has moved to allay fears over loss due to breakdown of the automated revenue collection system.
According to Finance and Economic Planning Chief Officer Torome Kapaya- the department has commissioned an audit to ascertain the compatibility and stability of the system before taking further actions.

At the same time the county has taken measures to ensure that daily revenue collection from road cess, parking and market fees are collected manually and banked promptly, Torome said.
The county purchased the Zizi revenue collection system sometimes in 2014 to help in streaming and strengthening its local revenue collection that was subject to leakages.
According to the Treasury the deal was to have the system on trial basis before it could be rolled out in all sub-counties. It replaced the Laiform system that has been adopted by the defunct local authorities.
But in the past few weeks, revenue collection clerks have been forced to collect cash manually after the breakdown with fears that the crisis could cost the county more revenue.
Experts have expressed concern over the credibility of the system noting that it produced inconsistent data across revenue points and could not capture all the revenue sources.

On Wednesday, Mr Torome admitted that the system has collapsed but a team of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts from the company that installed the system and county workers were making efforts to repair it.
"The system has some challenges but we are working to revive it. If that does not work we will have to look at other alternatives," said the senior officer.
Tax-payers have raised concerns over the breakdown saying the county should rethink reverting to an older system that was being used by the defunct local authorities.