Kiambu County government has praised its revenue collection automation partnership with Strathmore University saying it had contributed to the success of financial reforms in the county.
Kiambu was among the first county governments to carry out an extensive end-to-end automation for revenue collection processes and it has been praised for stellar performance in revenue collection.
County ICT Director Mr Douglas Njiraini revealed that revenue increased by 60 per cent this year compared to a similar period last year. This is partly due to revenue automation project with Strathmore University.
A report released by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) reviewing 2015 indicated that Kiambu was among the top five counties that had made great improvements in revenue collection.
“Strathmore University carried out extensive research in the county around how we collected revenue in the past, gave us a raft of recommendations before deploying our new County Pro system that is helping seal loop holes, improve decision making and modernise revenue collection. This has given the county agility in finance,” Njiraini said.
He added that more benefits came from the fact that the system was web based allowing people to pay online, through the new Kiambu Huduma card and at its sub-county banking halls.
“Someone travelling or in the diaspora can, for instance, log in and pay their land rates, licenses or any other rates via a range of payment methods made possible by the system,” he said.
The system supplied by @iLabAfrican IT Research Centre of Strathmore University features other web based tools for analytics and reporting providing critical business intelligence to leaders in the county.
County Deputy Revenue Director Henry Waweru said County Pro had presented the county revenue office with the platform to confront seepage of funds at the collectors’ level through use of QR coded receipts that can be verified by county inspectors.
“We had no idea we could get such a solution locally. The system provides prompt reports on funds coming in, shows where revenue is coming from and details specific performance on revenue sources. We are able to project and it is a big boost also for supervision,” he said.
Strathmore University said its IT Research Centre would partner with more county governments to deploy the County Pro system.