By Antynet Ford
Nairobi City County Assembly ad-hoc committee on the decline of revenue collection will be seeking an extension of thirty days to finalize their investigations and report writing before submitting their findings to the assembly.
The committee Chair and Majority leader Peter Imwatok said though they are at 85 per cent of their findings they need more time to meet with witnesses from the Ministry of Information Communication Technology (ICT) who wrote to them indicating to appear before them on February 9th, 2024.
“After the assembly resumes from recess on February 13th, we will make a formal request for the period to be extended by 30 days if the speaker allows that is. If not, we will table what we have so far at 85 per cent.” Imwatok stated.
This comes amid growing concerns about the emerging crack between the thirteen-member committee with the committee chair accusing the minority leader and other members of having meetings with the executive to be compromised.
“I am aware of mobilization by the executive to derail the findings of this committee. There are members having committee meetings within the committee and holding meetings with the executive.” Imwatok claimed.
With ninety days being over by today the committee expected to table the report, the main concern found has been the failing of the system at times with recommendations being to improve on what is there even though it is not clear where the servers are located and who is in charge of the admin rights as the county executive only have viewership rights.
According to minority leader Anthony Kiragu who is also a member of the committee, activities of the committee should be concluded instead of the back and forth as he adds that the committee has deviated from its objectives.
“The committee was created to establish if revenue collected by the county is lost and so far no coin has been lost. We have moved to non-issues like the color of the server and location. That tells you that the committee has veered off from its objective.” Kiragu stated.
On the system being down as was established being the main issue, Kiragu said that no system can be completely well as even M-pesa by Safaricom at times goes down.
“Even M-pesa goes down at times. We need to wind our investigations and table the report.” He added.
The committee chair indicated that the minority leader would be summoned and declare if he had an interest in missing one sitting which Kiragu dismissed saying that missing one meeting does not make him betray the committee as it is for the interest of Nairobians.
Yesterday, the committee was to meet ex-NMS director general Mohamed Badi who never showed up nor communicated.
However, Former deputy director of accounting services Constantine Mwikamba and former Acting deputy director general Patrick Mbogo appeared before the committee shading light that NMS was never in charge of revenue and they never interacted with the Nairobi Revenue System(NRS) adding that it was all operated by KRA and the County Finance department.
The two said they were aware of the national government which was the one that came up with the NRS.
This answers the points raised by KRA that a multi-agency by the Ministry of Interior and ICT is the one that developed the system.
The Ministry of Interior in a recent letter however directed the committee to inquire about NRS from the head of public service (Felix Koskei) and the Chief of staff at State House.