Kakamega has the potential to collect up to Sh 5 billion in own source revenue.
Governor Fernandes Barasa said the county has a target of Sh3 billion this financial year. The county collected Sh2.2 billion last financial year.
The governor spoke when he presided over the pass out parade for 200 county marshals at the ASK show ground on Wednesday.
He said the marshals will take part in revenue collection as their primary duty to shore up own funds.
“Most officers in this group will be posted to support the revenue team as we hope to improve our own source revenue gap to be able to implement our programmes.”
Barasa said success of his agenda to transform Kakamega county spends on maximising revenue collection from own sources.
His six-point agenda includes health, food security, agriculture, industrialisation and good governance.
Revenue collection from local sources has been on the decline in the county. The trend has been attributed to revenue leakages.
Barasa noted that the cohort that graduated on Wednesday had gone through intensive training and equipped with skills in revenue collection.
“The team is expected to operate with honesty, integrity and without any compromise to curb revenue pilferage in the county,” the governor said.
He said erratic disbursement of sharable revenue to the counties by the National Treasury had affected operations in counties.
He urged counties to come with innovations that would increase local revenue collection to avoid disruption of services.
Barasa, who chairs the finance and economic planning committee of the Council of Governors, urged Treasury to expedite release of funds to counties to facilitate completion of stalled projects.
Counties have not received their sharable revenue from July, despite the National Assembly approving the Division of Revenue Act.
“I want to appeal to the CS National Treasury to expedite release of the sharable revenue to the counties to ensure that the counties projects are not paralyzed,” Barasa said.
The governor also said his collaboration with the Kenya Kwanza administration is yielding positive results.
Projects started by the previous administration, such as upgrading of Bukhungu stadium to international standards and Kakamega Level 4 Hospital, are set to be completed in a year’s time with the help of the national government.
