KISUMU, Kenya, Oct 24 – Absa Bank of Kenya has decried low own source revenue being collected by the counties as it offers through partnerships to help the counties realize their full potential.
The Bank’s Interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yusuf Omari says currently counties are only collecting 40 percent of revenue.
Omari says as a Bank, they have solutions to address some of the challenges that affects the counties ability to reap maximum in revenue collection.
“We know the challenges on revenue collection and we have solutions to some of these problems,” he said.
Omari says research has been conducted on its own source revenue but the implementation is lacking to enable the counties to seal the loopholes.
“Today the counties are only able to collect about 40 percent, so there is about 60 percent which remains uncollected,’ he said.
The CEO called for partnership with the Bank to help with some of the collection strategies so that no amount of money is lost during the collection.
“Looking at this year’s exchequer allocation for county governments in the 2022/23 fiscal year which are set to receive Sh. 407 billion for recurrent expenditure, legislative and development spending, we see an opportunity to provide collection solutions to county governments which will increasingly support you to improve your own source revenue lines,” he said.
Speaking in Kisumu on Monday during Western Kenya Business Forums organized in partnership with the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Omari says the forums gives the bank an opportunity to listen to their customers’ needs.
He announced that the Bank has had steady returns primarily driven by growth in business banking, thus the need to hold such forums across the country to meet their existing customers and woo more.
“If you look at the performance of the bank in the last 3 years, the biggest area of growth is actually business banking and this is because we have really opened up,” he said.
Omari says the bank has introduced tailor made products to accommodate every Kenyan in their institution.
“We have made significant strides towards fulfilling our pledge to support the SMEs sector, which is critical for the growth and development of our nation,” he said.
The Chamber Kisumu chapter leader Israel Agina hailed the forums while calling upon Absa Bank to make the cost of finance affordable to the SMEs.
“We want the county government to support those who are financing us by making sure that they pay the bills in time to allow cash flow to sail smoothly,” he said.
