Kenya’s Safaricom has been given the task of providing West Pokot County with an automated method of collecting revenue.

By going digital the process will be efficient and secure; the agreement between the County and the Telco Company has been sealed.

Safaricom will install the infrastructures and manage the system that would be up and running by the next financial year.

The Governor of the County Simon Kachapin said most of the county allocation goes to salaries hence there was need to boost revenue collection, as well as ensure maximum utilization of all the avenues for revenue collection.

“We have already awarded Safaricom the contract to undertake the automation and at the moment, we are working out on the contracting agreement before the programme begins soon,” he said.

According to the governor, the system will have the option of mobile money transfer services, which will ease payment of revenues to the county government by local investors. The county has its eyes on collecting a total of Ksh 150 million up from Ksh 100 million.

The county revenue collections boss pointed out that the share of national revenue for the semi-arid county set by the Commission on Revenue Allocation was meagre for the development needs of the region.

The move to automate revenue collections was necessitated by inadequate allocations – necessitating the need to enhance collections to boost its budget.  The governor also said that the county is set to undertake trainings for its revenue collectors on how to best use the new machines.

The semi-arid county was rated top among the 47 counties in local revenue collections after surpassing its target by 76.3 percent in the last financial year.