The county government of Bungoma has embarked on a digital way of collecting revenue as a major step of sealing loopholes in the collection of revenue and reduces contact between people and cash collected.
Governor Ken Lusaka confirmed that his team of experts are working on the new system that is expected to kick off at the end December whereby all the money collected as revenue in all collection points and offices shall be digitized and monitored by officers from a central point to reduce the stealing of funds that have curtailed the county’s capacity of revenue collection.
Lusaka revealed that his government has carried out an audit of revenue collection that determined the total revenue potential of the county and identified the gaps that exist in the current revenue streams saying his officers are working to implement strategies to breach the gaps and operate at the county optimum.
“I have been assured by my officers that the program of digitizing the revenue collection is almost ready. By January all our revenue collection shall be digitized.” He said
“Car parking fees and all the revenue collected at our markets and other collection centers shall be digitized, I will be able to monitor and know how much money has been collected at a given point in a day,” he added.
The governor who was speaking during this year’s Jamuhuri Day celebrations at the Masinde Muliro stadium in Kanduyi said that his efforts to improve service delivery and fight corruption are now aimed at the revenue collection.
“We have names of the officers who have been stealing money in the revenue collection and my focus in fighting corruption is now aimed at the revenue collection department I would now like to warn them that their Christmas is over,” Lusaka noted.
He vowed to continue getting rid of corrupt officers from his administration and urged members of the public and stakeholders to support him in the fight because the money being stolen is their taxes that should be used to bring development and offer good services.
Lusaka’s government had a few months ago been the talk of the county and nation after it was rocked by corrupt deals including the purchasing of a wheelbarrow at Ksh. 109,000 among other malpractices that saw the anti-corruption team raid some of the offices and homes belonging to some of the suspected officers.
Last week governor Lusaka fired some of the implicated senior officers, suspended some of them and directed for the surcharging of others who had mismanaged funds.
The governor during the suspension and firing of some of the officers also suspended all trips by county government officers traveling out of the county and country.
Cautioned against early political campaigns
On politics Lusaka urged politicians not to politicize service delivery to the residents and stop forcing people to join political parties.
He urged his officers to detest from early politics and make the year 2016 as a year to serve the people of Bungoma County saying that early involvement in politics shall ruin the government’s implementation of projects and other development.
“People want to put us in a politicking situation the whole of next year preventing development yet the elections will be held on 8th August 2017,” the governor said.
Lusaka called on those seeking political support for election in 2017 to stop forcing people to join their parties but to embrace a culture of respecting the decisions of the people to decide on which party to follow or leader to support.
He noted that political parties are like different denominations and leaders from different political parties should not force people to join their political vehicles.
The celebrations were attended by the county commissioner Maalim Mohammed among other government officials from the national and county governments.
