County targets to boost its local revenue collection

The County government of Uasin Gishu on Tuesday launched a Revenue Enhancement exercise that seeks to improve on the local revenue collection.While launching the exercise at the county headquarters, Deputy Governor Daniel Chemno said the move has been occasioned by low revenue being collected in the county."The  exercise  seeks to sensitize locals on the need to pay for business licence fees as well as land rates," he said during the launch.Chemno further warned that individuals found not abiding by county laws and regulations on payments of licence fees and other rates, will face the full force of the law."Locals need to pay taxes to enable us give quality services to them and this is why we will be firm on those who want to do business illegally," he added.According to county's Finance and Economic planning Executive Julius Ruto, the county has failed to reach its target on revenue collection for the past two financial years.He said the county had collected Sh206 million by December 2017, which was way below the Sh850 million target for that 2016/17 financial year.However, Ruto said politics could have affected the collected amount."We had a lot of politics last year and this is why our revenue dropped but are hoping with the launch of this exercise we will collect over the targeted sh 0.8 billion," said Ruto."Uasin Gishu as a county has a great potential and we are looking at collecting local revenue to reach up to sh 2 billion in a single financial year in future," he added.