Murang’a County has recorded the biggest growth in revenue collection. The county that is led by Governor Irungu Kang’ata recorded an impressive Sh. 1 billion in revenue collection for the current financial year.

According to Governor Kang’ata, this is double the revenue collection that was previously collected in the financial year 2022/23. Murang’a County had collected Sh. 520.3 million in the financial year 2021/22 and Sh. 658.17 million in the financial year 2022/23. This represented a revenue growth of 26.49 per cent.

This increase in revenue collection was largely attributed to the digitization of the collection system that was aimed at reducing revenue leakages. The digitization system was launched on September 9 2022.

At the time, Governor Kang’ata had stated that the county was aiming at collecting Sh. 200 million every month. The Governor said that this revenue collection milestone was realized despite the county not increasing its levies and taxes.

According to a report by the Controller of Budget (CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o for the first nine months of the 2023/24 financial year, Murang’a County’s own source of revenue increased by 37 per cent Sh. 716.44 million from Sh. 453.67 million.

Overall, the CoB report shows that all counties have collected only 51 per cent of their annual targets, translating to Sh. 41.40 billion out of an annual target of Sh. 80.78 billion over the period.

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Counties with the lowest proportion of own source revenue against targets include Kericho at 30.8 per cent, Nyandarua at 27.1 per cent, Machakos at 26.3 per cent, and Lamu at 20.7 per cent of the annual collection target.

Kericho had set a target of collecting Sh. 1.2billion but only managed to collect Sh. 392.3million within nine months. Nyandarua had a target of Sh. 1.2 billion but only managed Sh. 332.5 million.

Machakos aimed at Sh. 4 billion but only managed Sh. 1 billion. Lamu targeted Sh. 350 million but only collected Sh. 72.6 million.

Counties that hit 75 per cent targets in nine months included Uasin Gishu, Samburu, Isiolo, Kirinyaga, Turkana, Nandi, Vihiga, Meru, Wajir, Narok, Nyeri, and Elgeyo-Marakwet.

For instance, Uasin Gishu set a target of Sh. 1.17 billion and collected Sh. 1 billion within nine months while Samburu had a target of Sh. 256 million and collected Sh232.2 million in the same period.