Bungoma county government on Monday launched an automated revenue management system as part of her ongoing efforts to enhance revenue collection.
The Automated Revenue Management system now makes Bungoma county to join the ongoing list of counties that use automated revenue management system like Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Kiambu and Machakos.
Speaking at Kenya Industrial Estate in Bungoma, the deputy governor Mr. Hillary Chengwony said Automated Revenue Management System (ARMS) provides easier way of revenue collection and banking.
“The key objective of developing the system is to seal out all leakages in the revenue management process.” Said Chengwony.
It is expected that the new system will enable the county government to raise revenue collection from 504 million and the county government targets to grow by 50%revenue in 2016.
He added that the new system is part of ongoing efforts to reform revenue management in the county, “I appeal to all of us to support the implementation of the new system, our rate payer’s revenue collection and revenue management staff will be very critical in the success of new system”.
He assured the field staff that their jobs are safe and they should not worry, “we are not introducing this system to replace you, the essence of this system is to enable you perform roles as revenue collector’s efficiency.
Other attendants in the meeting were Bungoma county assembly speaker John Makali who said that the county was ranked second in the last years of revenue collection by controller of budget.
The speaker asked the officers in charge of revenue allocation to see to it that the tax payers get value for their money as opposed to the current situation in which money is collected but ends up in the pockets of new corrupt individuals.
He asked the chief officer for finance and economic planning to also factor in gender balance and persons with disabilities when employing collection officers, citing that the current team is gender biased consisting of men only.
County assembly finance committee chairman Nanyakha revealed that the county has lost over 1.2billion since the inception of the devolved system of governance, and asked the chief officer for finance and economic planning to seal all loopholes that have seen a drop in revenue collection adding that they should fast track public awareness and capacity.
