Nairobi News

The Nairobi county government has given business and property owners until March 31 to pay for their licenses and rates owed to the county government or lose their property or face prosecution in five days.

The county Finance Executive Danvas Makori has said those who will fail to beat the deadline will have to bear the burden of a three per cent interest per month which will be imposed on them.

The county will also not be giving waivers as has been the case in previous years.

“This year, let me make it very clear that there shall be no waivers because people have been waiting after the last day hoping that we shall give them waivers. We shall stick to the deadline,” said Makori.

Addressing a press conference at City Hall on Saturday, Makori said they will not hesitate to seek legal action to auction property whose owners have defaulted or use other enforcement mechanisms to ensure defaulters pay up.

REVENUE TARGET

Makori said only 43 per cent of businesses have paid for the unified business permit as at last Friday, a figure he said was too low.

According to Makori, the county has failed to meet its revenue target since 2013.

The county collected about 1.7 billion shillings in the last month, and is keen on raising more revenue from land rates which it says are a big revenue earner other than licenses and building and fire permits.

The county’s 2017-18 fiscal strategy paper, collected Sh11.7 billion in the 2015-16 financial year against a target of Sh15.2 billion which was a shortfall of 23.5 per cent or Sh3.5 billion.

“Internal revenue has been experiencing hurdles over the years, the shortfalls resulting in the erratic financing of projects and programmes and sometimes derailing timeliness in implementation,” the report reads.

But Makori said the new administration has sealed most of the revenue loopholes. This, he said, has significantly increased daily collections.