County charged exorbitant land rates illegally, report indicates

Taxpayers in Nakuru have been paying irregular and exorbitant land rates to the county administration, the county assembly has revealed.

The Assembly's Committee on Lands, Housing and Physical Planning yesterday exposed, in a report, how landowners had been paying the rates based on an old and obsolete valuation roll.

Valuation roll

The committee revealed that the county government had not updated its valuation roll, leading to the unlawful and illegal rates.

“The rates subjected to Nakuru Municipality Block 3 owners were unlawful. They also lacked a clear legislation on valuation and rating to guide them,” said Committee Chairman Stephen Ngethe.

Mr Ngethe explained that the county’s last valuation roll, which assigns a value to all properties in an area in order to charge land rates on an equitable basis, was last reviewed in 2005.

Every 10 years

The defunct municipalities used to review the valuation roll after every 10 years, but the county government, in its "Valuation Bill 2017", reduced the period to five years.

The committee observed that despite absence of a legal review on the valuation roll over the years, the rates kept varying and alarmingly shot up in 2011.

“We are staring at a disaster should all Nakuru residents go to court and challenge the current rates," said Ngethe.

"For a 50 by 100 plot, the landlords paid Sh3,000 in 1989, Sh5,000 in 1990, and Sh7,000 in 2007 annually. How the rates for the same parcels shot to Sh83,500 in 2011 is suspect?”

Ngethe noted that the county government in 2014 reviewed the rates downwards to Sh66,800 per year, but the amount still was abnormally high.

Apart from the exorbitant levies, the committee members were also concerned by the glaring discrepancies on rates charged on different commercial plots which are of the same size and in the same block.

Annual rates

“Nakuru Happy Church, which sits on half an acre, has been paying annual land rates of Sh6,006 while New Life Church, which sits on a smaller plot, paid Sh108,120. This is abnormal, since they are both in Municipality block 3,” Ngethe said.

The MCAs said when the County Executive Member for Lands, Housing and Physical Planning was questioned, he could not explain why the discrepancies existed, and why the outdated 2005 valuation roll was still in use.

The committee embarked on compiling the report after being petitioned by a section of landowners from Shabab Ward.

The petitioners said as a result of the unlawful charges, they had been unable to pay their annual rates as required by law, and hence accrued hefty penalties.

This exposed them to the risk of losing property to the county government.

They said every year the county government had been announcing waivers on penalties charged for defaulted land rates but still many could not pay the exorbitant amounts.

“The county government has failed in its mandate of fairness with the taxpayer as a result of such irregularities," said Maiella Ward MCA Kamanu Gathariki, adding: "The matter should be urgently resolved and it should not only focus on the petitioners, but the entire county”.

Other MCAs who spoke said those slapped with penalties should have them waived and the rates harmonised to enhance equity.

Illegally charged

They said those who had been illegally charged should be refunded the money that had accrued over the years.

Sammy Murage, who is among the petitioners, owns a 45 by 100 plot valued at Sh3.4 million.

He has not been able to pay his rates amounting to Sh66,800 annually for the last three years. Another complainant, New Life Church, which sits on a 100 by 100 plot, owes the county government Sh6 million.