Nairobi County Taxes: Households in Nairobi are set to dig deeper into their pockets to pay taxes to the Nairobi County Government. Reports say that in a raft of new tax measures, residents in Nairobi will now pay for fire, garbage and animal fees.
Apparently, the Nairobi City County’s Finance Bill 2019 proposes that all households in Nairobi start paying fire certificate fees of Sh. 2,000 per year. This means that the county government will be making Sh. 3 billion in fire certifications alone from the estimated 1.5 million Nairobi households.
This will be in addition to monthly garbage collection charges of Sh. 100 for informal settlements, Sh. 300 for middle class estates, and Sh. 600 for high-end suburbs. Those keeping dogs or cats as pets will be charged a Sh. 1,000 health inspection fee.
These taxes are aimed at boosting the county’s government’s Sh. 35.2 billion annual budget. Out of this budget, Sh. 17.32 billion of this budget will be raised through taxes, levies and other charges on city residents.
In the same vein, motorists in Nairobi are set to dig deeper into their pockets to cater for their parking. This is because parking fees in Nairobi will be doubled to Sh. 400 within the city centre by the counry government.
The move will also see parking charges of Sh. 200 introduced in residential areas with motorists paying Sh. 300 at shopping and business hubs. The hubs are listed as Upper Hill, Community, Westlands, Yaya Centre, Eastleigh, Industrial Area, Karen, Gigiri, Ngara and Hurlingham.
The plans by the Mike Sonko-led administration to raise parking fees is not in tandem with his campaign promise of halving the charges to Sh. 150 from the then Sh. 300.
Parking fees is the biggest source of revenue for City Hall with collections of about Sh. 2 billion every year but corruption and collusion between parking attendants and motorists have denied the city administration the much needed millions of shillings it requires to fix many service lines. City Hall has struggled to raise revenues needed to upgrade roads and clear garbage in a county that salaries gobble up more than 60 percent of its total income.