Governor Natembeya Summoned for Using Illegal Paybill Number to Collect Ksh1.3 Million

Senators on Saturday ordered Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya to appear before the Senate Committee on Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) next week to explain a loss of Ksh1.3 million in public funds.

In the summon, the senators stated that they identified the discrepancy while conducting an inquiry into the status of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and other county revenue management systems.

The Ksh1.3 million is said to have been lost through revenue collection using an illegal Paybill number, 770478.

Led by Trans Nzoia Senator Allan Chesang, the committee also noted that they had classified the incident as an economic crime and called for prompt investigations from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).

After Natembeya skipped the meeting, the county’s Deputy County Secretary Boniface Wanyonyi was at pains to explain the county’s revenue collection process, specifically the designated revenue collectors. 

“We would like your technical person to show us the list of revenue collectors. We have seen Trans Nzoia CECs collecting revenue,” Senator Chesang asked.

He told the senators that County Executive Committee (CEC) members were involved in overseeing operations as part of the Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) in a bid to boot revenue collection.

However, Wanyonyi clarified that the CECs were not directly involved in revenue collection.

Unimpressed with the explanation, the committee directed the County Executive to provide relevant documentation within three days.

Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei also addressed the county’s poor performance in revenue collection as projected and had considerably failed in reaching its targets.

“The county is fairing badly in terms of hitting its revenue targets by only collecting Ksh500 million against a revenue target potential of Ksh1.3 billion projected by the Commission of Revenue Allocation,” said Cherargei.

To ensure similar instances do not reoccur, nominated Senator Beatrice Ogolla urged the county officials to integrate the revenue management system with IFMIS to prevent revenue leakage. 

Cherargei echoed these remarks appealing to counties to collaborate with the Council of Governors (COG) and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to develop integrated revenue management systems.