The county government of Kisumu has partnered with Safaricom to scale up revenue collection in a major deal where the devolved unit targets to net Ksh2.2 billion in the 2023/2024 Financial Year (FY), an increase of Ksh1.1 billion from the previous year.
The County Executive Committee Member (CECM) in charge of Finance, Economic Planning, and e-Government, George Okong’o, said that the county plans to go cashless to seal all loopholes in revenue collection.
Okong’o regretted that the county government continues to lose millions of shillings through cash collections adding that the new system will leverage Safaricom’s different payment options to meet the set target.
He said that Safaricom will provide payment solutions through its Paybill, mobile application, and USSD platforms to ensure they go cashless and cut down the loss margin as they move to solidify source revenue collection.
Okong’o said that the county had also reviewed property and land rates to reflect the current market value and submitted the new rates to the County Assembly for approval.
The development comes amidst pressure on counties to scale up on source revenue collections to meet development obligations.
In the 2021/2022 FY, on-source revenue collection in Kisumu collected Ksh800 million affecting the county’s projected development programmes.
However, according to Okong’o, various interventions mooted to scale up collections saw the figure increase to Ksh 1.1 billion.
By Fredrick Odiero
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