Africa-Press – Kenya. Only three counties out of the 47 devolved units managed to meet their revenue collection targets, but overall there was improvement in own source collections.
Lamu’s own source revenue increased 119.8 percent, Kirinyaga 112.3 percent, Kitui 110.6 percent and Samburu at 94.3percent collection.
Despite less than half (23) of the devolved units recording improvement, they collected a total of Sh37.8 billion against the target of Sh57.4 billion.
According to the Treasury’s Draft 2023 Budget Review and Outlook Paper, the county governments only met 65.9 percent of their revenue collection target in the 2022/23 fiscal year.
As at the end of the 2022/23 financial year Homabay, Narok and Elgeyo Marakwet counties recorded the fastest Own Source Revenue (OSR) collection growth rate of 128.5 percent, 122.5 percent and 84.4 percent respectively in the last two financial years.
In the last financial year, Homa Bay County local revenue collection grew by 235.2 percent to Sh491.5 million from Sh146.6 million in the FY2021/22.
While that of Narok County grew by 129.4percent to Sh3.1 billion from Sh1.3 billion over the same period.
“Analysis of OSR performance in the FY 2022/23 indicates that 40 County governments were able to collect more than fifty percent of their annual OSR target,” said Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u in the report.
The least performing counties were Murang’a 42.2 percent, Mandera 42.2 percent, Marsabit 34.5percent and Nyamira 26.3 percent.
Majority of the counties in the ASAL regions are still reporting low revenue collections than their peers in other areas.
“The National Treasury notes that a number of County Governments reported revenue collection way below their target. This could be attributed to a number of factors such as lack of proper revenue administration structures, revenue leakages, lack of internal controls or unrealistic revenue targets,” the report reads.
Over the last two financial years, Wajir, Busia and Marsabit counties recorded the highest reduction in OSR collection at 20 percent, 20.2 percent and 25.5 percent respectively.
The total actual expenditure by the county governments in the FY 2022/23 was Sh428.9 billion of which actual expenditure on development was Sh98 billion while on recurrent was Sh330.9 billion.
On the other hand, the expenditure on wages was Sh195.1 billion. The expenditures were against actual revenue amounting to Sh466.0 billion.
The paper notes that in the 2024-2025 financial year, county transfers will take Sh444.8 billion of the budget.
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