Uasin Gishu Governor Dr Jonathan Bii has affirmed the County’s plan of mapping out all business premises across the county, an exercise primed to in the long, enable the County to offer better services to the public.
The exercise, targeting to obtain data from up to 80,000 business premises, is touted to assist in enhanced revenue collection and ultimately, enable the County Government to provide even better services to residents of Uasin Gishu.
The Governor attributes the initiative as part of the new revenue system, the Sisibo Pay.
“From this exercise, we are estimating to collect over Ksh 2.7 billion in our source revenue and this will enable us to stabilize the economy and the progress of our county” noted Dr Bii on Monday at the county headquarters during the flagging off of enumerators.
The county head also urged them to work hard to meet the set target and portray a good image of the county during the exercise.
He also disclosed that his administration has reduced monthly motorbike stickers from Ksh600 in the CBD to Ksh 400 and Ksh300 in the peri-urban centres.
License application deadline
Chief Officer for Finance, Eliud Chemaget, and his counterpart for Trade Geoffrey Tanui said the data will be used for policy issues to streamline business, calling on the business community to fully support the initiative.
Chemaget further said mapping locations of the businesses will be used to make it easier to identify businesses that have paid for the license and those that have not.
“We are also assuring our business community that we have extended the license application deadline from 31st March to 30th April,” added Chemaget.
County Director of Revenue Management, CPA Jonah Lamai, called on the enumerators to engage and dialogue with members of the public to see the exercise successful adding that license and land rates are the key drivers of revenue.
Licensing and Compliance Director, David Kebenei, said the department will tailor make the Inua Biashara Fund with the real data collected to see more traders benefit from the fund.
He reiterated that the exercise will also help in getting more data for businesses that may have grown and expanded over time, and issuing new licenses as per the policies.
Currently, business data used to issue licenses was obtained in 2015.
