Nairobi to set daily targets for parking staff after revenue fall
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja while appearing before the County Public Investment and special funds committee to respond to questions on the audit reports on the financial statements of the Nairobi Water and sewerage company at KICC, Nairobi on February 14, 2023. PHOTO | LUCY WANJIRU | NMG
City Hall will set daily targets for parking attendants in Nairobi county in a push to boost collections from its biggest source of revenue after its revenues dropped to a record low since devolution.
Nairobi says setting targets for the staff will ensure it curbs high levels of graft and help it meet the ambitious plan of raising at least Sh3 billion in the financial year starting July.
The unprecedented move is, however, likely to usher in increased cases of harassment of motorists as attendants race to meet the targets.
Parking fees are one of the top three revenue streams for City Hall, but it has continued to underperform mainly due to corrupt attendants.
“The projection (for the 2023/24 financial year will be achieved by setting the targets for all street attendants and enforcers for all 12,000 parking slots,” the Johnson Sakaja-led administration says in its draft Fiscal Strategy Paper for 2023.
City Hall has not disclosed the range of the daily targets for the parking attendants. The proposal comes amid City Hall’s struggles to meet targets for the stream with the county on course to miss its target on parking fees in the year ending June.
Parking fees, land rates and Single Business Permits are City Hall’s three biggest revenue lines but corruption, weak resources and an overstretched workforce have hurt its ability to meet the targets.
City Hall raised Sh798.67 million from parking fees in the six months that ended December, well below half of the targeted Sh3.025 billion.
In total, the county raised Sh2.73 billion in internal revenues from all streams in the six months to last December, the lowest since devolution, after a Sh1.07 billion drop from a similar period a year earlier.
This is the lowest that City Hall has collected in the first half of a financial year since the start of devolution a decade ago with the closest to this level being Sh3.105 billion netted in the six months to December 2017.
Missed targets have hurt its ability to deliver basic services.
