- Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jnr said the county achieved the feat during the 2023-24 financial year collecting Sh1.058 billion.
- He thanked the business community for their contribution to the success through their commitment to willingly pay fees and charges.
Image: MUTULA JNR/X
Makueni County has hit a new milestone by surpassing the Sh1 billion own source revenue collection in 10 years.
Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jnr said the county achieved the feat during the 2023-24 financial year.
“In the 2023-24 Financial Year, the county collected Sh1.058 billion as of June 30, 2024. This is a notable achievement for the county since 2013 to hit the Sh1 billion mark,” Mutula said.
He thanked the business community for their contribution to the success saying the milestone was achieved courtesy of their commitment to willingly pay fees and charges.
The governor rewarded the traders with a one-day tax amnesty as a show of appreciation.
“Thank you Makueni citizens for paying taxes and fees, together we can achieve more for development. To this end, we will reward our market traders with a tax holiday on Friday, July 5, 2024. Tufanye biashara bila malipo this Friday, July 5, 2024,” he said in a statement.
Governor Mutula said the county employed several strategies which enabled it to achieve the 10-digit strong target in revenue collection.
Top on the list is the automation of revenue collection and ensuring payment of all fees and taxes are cashless.
He said the county government also shifted from the requirement for traders to pay daily fees and embraced monthly payments.
Further, he revealed, that all payments for Major Revenue Streams are 100 per cent paperless and a trader’s invoice and permit are delivered to their phone.
Other strategies, he added, include unified billing for efficiency, mapping all tax-payers by conducting business census and enhanced market outreach.
Governor Mutula said revenue collection was further boosted by enhanced healthcare revenue collection and enhanced client relations by making revenue collection more humane.
Counties are increasingly being encouraged to boost their source revenue to bridge funding shortfalls from sharable revenue from the national government amid escalating pending bills and recurrent expenditures.
But even then, the majority of the counties are struggling to raise their revenue and this compounded by delayed disbursement of sharable revenue is leading to poor service provision in the affected counties.
In the first half of 2023-24 for instance, only five counties attained over 50 per cent of local revenue collection resulting in only 24.9 per cent of the aggregate annual target of Sh80 billion for all the 47 devolved units.