Cheserem said it was illogical for the county to misappropriate the amount from a budget of Sh23 billion/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 6 – The Commission on Revenue Allocation chairman Micah Cheserem has defended the Nairobi County government over the alleged misappropriation of Sh20 billion.
Cheserem said it was illogical for the county to misappropriate the amount from a budget of Sh23 billion.
He said that 80 per cent of what the reports claim have been misappropriated might be due to accounting errors and urged the Auditor General to give specifics as opposed to generalities.
“I read that Nairobi lost Sh20 billion. I mean how could that have happened from a budget of Sh23 billion. It is illogical,” he said. “Very soon Kenyans will start ignoring these reports because they don’t tell us the genuine loss and who was responsible,” he said.
Cheserem said his commission will work with the National treasury to help county boost revenue.
“In five years, Nairobi should be depending on its own. There are a lot of properties in Nairobi which can bring revenue, especially land rates,” he said.
The chairman later inspected several projects that have been undertaken by the county government since inception.
The Revenue Allocation chairman spoke at City Hall when he paid a courtesy call to the Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke who also faulted the Auditor’s report.
“We have increased the number of streetlights. We have 105 projects that are ongoing. How could these have been possible,” he said.
“The Auditor also questioned the system we are using to collect revenue yet since we came here we have increased our collection from Sh7.1 billion to Sh13.1 billion,” he said.
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