The State raised an additional Sh24.7 billion as appropriations-in-aid (A-I-A) on the back of a hike in college fees and increased collection of road maintenance levies from motorists, helping to boost flagging tax revenues.
Data from the National Treasury shows that revenue from A-I-A rose to Sh244.8 billion in the first nine months of the current financial year against a target of Sh220.1 billion.
Treasury said part of the money came from fees charged by public universities and the roads maintenance levy, which is collected from motorists for rehabilitation of the infrastructure.
“The good performance of A-I-A was mainly due to timely reporting of SAGAs’ A.I.A through the expenditure returns for the period under review,” said Treasury in the Quarterly Economic Budget Review for the third quarter.
SAGA is the short form for State Corporations, Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies. Increased collection of fees and commissions helped offset a poor performance in ordinary revenue collected by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) during this period.
KRA missed its revenue collection target for the third quarter by Sh112 billion, pointing to a tough business environment in a period plagued by reports of salary delays.
The taxman raised Sh1.686 trillion in taxes in the fiscal year to the period ending March this year against a target of Sh1.773 trillion.
Starting in the second half of 2021, the University of Nairobi (UoN) more than doubled fees for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees in what was aimed at helping ease a cash crunch brought on by a dip in student enrolment.
The university increased fees for liberal arts Master’s courses such as communication to more than Sh600,000 for a two-year programme from an average of Sh275,000, reflecting an increase of 118 percent.
Degree courses such as commerce, economics and law under the parallel plan have been increased by up to 70 percent to about Sh1 million for the four years.
