The Kakamega County has begun training 102 clerks on cashless revenue collection following a successful recruitment process carried out in each of the 60 wards.
Officiating the training on Saturday, Governor Oparanya said by training the revenue collection agents, the county aimed at achieving maximum revenue collection using the recently introduced cashless system.
“We wish that by training the clerks we equip them with the skills they need to run the cashless system, and thus reduce the challenges encountered by users,” said Oparanya.
He urged the clerks to remain dedicated since they were required to meet certain targets in their revenue collection task.
He observed that Kakamega has in the past years missed revenue targets due to manual systems among other factors.
READ MORE
Kakamega County urged to address critical deficiencies in education sector
Government back to drawing board after KRA misses tax targets
The requirement by the Commission on Revenue Allocation for a county to qualify for a share of revenues collected is pegged to its ability to collect a minimum of Sh.1 billion.
Oparanya said the creation of Kakamega County Revenue Collection Agency, an equivalent of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in operations, is expected to enhance collection of revenue in the county.
Deputy Governor Philip Kutima encouraged the recruits to live up to the expectations of the county government in regard to revenue collection.
He told them to be hardworking, exercise honesty and positively present the government’s image to the public.
The controller of budget last month told Kakamega to increase its sources of revenue after finding out that the county had a drop in revenue collection from Sh300 million to Sh 284 million.
Oparanya said the decrease noticed was as a result of cash leaks that were experience with the previous manual system and county officials’ opposition of the new cashless system.
He said action would be taken against those who opposed the cashless system.
