Machakos county Finance executive Onesmus Kuyu (receives) projects proposals from locals during a public participation exercise on Machakos County Fiscal Strategy Paper 2025 and Medium term Budget FY 2025/2026-2027/2028 in Mumbuni ward, Machakos subcounty on February, 2025/GEORGE OWITIMachakos residents have been urged to be faithful in paying taxes to increase the county's own-source revenue.
The county’s Finance Executive, Onesmus Kuyu, said the county government has the potential of collecting Sh7 billion annually in revenue if residents faithfully pay taxes as required.
“Machakos county alone has 58, 062 businesses; we had done mapping as a county government and found that the county has the potential of collecting Sh7 billion. It means that we need to sensitise people to pay taxes,” Kuyu said.
Kuyu spoke during the public participation exercise on Machakos County Fiscal Strategy Paper 2025 and Medium-Term Budget FY 2025/2026-2027/2028 in Mumbuni ward, Machakos subcounty, on Monday.
The ongoing public participation exercise across the county is in line with the provisions of Article 220(2) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 read together with Section 87 of the County Government Act 2012 on Citizen Engagement and Section 117 of the Public Finance Management Act 2012.
“The governor had ordered that issues of pending bills must be stopped as she continues to sort out those she found claiming their debts from the Machakos county government when she ascended to power in 2022,” Kuyu said.
Kuyu said the county government had the potential of collecting Sh626 million from parking fees, Sh1.7 billion cess, Sh93 million from the 386 markets across the county, Sh69 million from 72 slaughterhouses, Sh763 million from building plan approvals.
While the hospitals had Sh1 billion. There are ten Level Four hospitals and one Level Five hospital in Machakos county.
To seal loopholes in the revenue collection across the county, Kuyu said they had gone paperless with the intent of boosting own source revenue.
Kuyu announced his exit from manual revenue collection and management in what he termed as a move aimed at improving efficiency in overall revenue management.
“Governor Wavinya Ndeti’s administration has fully migrated into a cashless system for all transactions, a move that has eliminated revenue leakage in the lower Eastern region's richest county,” Kuyu said.
Kuyu said the cashless payment system earlier introduced by the governor was already fruitful.
"By eliminating human interaction with cash and introducing pay bill numbers for payment of general and hospital revenue, we have witnessed a significant improvement in our own Source Revenue which is a huge booster of the county development agenda," he said.
The governor, in her speech read by Agriculture CECM Catherine Mutanu, commended Machakos residents for what she termed as remaining steadfast in supporting her government towards attaining the vision to empower the people of Machakos and transforming the county to a model in development and economic prosperity.
“Good governance is the foundation of a thriving county, and a key pillar of good governance is active citizen participation. With responsibility comes accountability, and we must uphold the trust that our citizens have placed in us,” Ndeti stated.
She said the most effective way to foster trust and ensure the success of her administration’s development projects is through meaningful engagement with the people they serve.
“True governance is about ensuring that the people’s voices shape politics and decisions that impact their lives. Our journey towards inclusively transforming our county began immediately I assumed office as we engaged in the process of formulating the County Integrated Development Plan in the period 2023–2027,” Ndeti said.
Ndeti said she personally traversed the county engaging members of the public and ensuring that their voices were heard in projects’ proposals.
The public participation exercise that began on February 17 ends on February 20.
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