County Government of Laikipia

This year's Africities Summit was held in the lakeside city of Kisumu. H.E. President Uhuru Kenyatta opened the five-day conference that has run from Tuesday 17th to Saturday 21st May 2022.

The theme was: The Role of Intermediary Cities of Africa in the Implementation of Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and the African Union Agenda 2063.

In a special panel discussing How Counties and Cities can Raise and Manage Own Source Revenue the Council of Governors, COG, was represented by Laikipia Deputy Governor, Hon. John Mwaniki.

Moderating the special panel was Dr. Jane Karangai, Chairperson of the Commission on Revenue Allocation. The panel appreciated that, especially in Kenya, the nation's largest population in 2030 will be living in urban centers. These urban centers, especially County headquarters, will be cities.

How these to-be cities shall thrive and sustain themselves is predicated on how we manage towns today. How efficiently we collect revenue, how responsibly we utilize revenue, and how wisely we shall choose infrastructural projects that are futuristic.Dr. Kirangai settled.

Echoing CRA's Chair sentiments, Laikipia Deputy Governor H.E. John Mwaniki noted that before the devolved system of government, the economic and social growth of most municipal councils was dismal, and such were their tax regimes and management.

Municipal council managers were uninspired to dream of their towns as cities, thus, collecting and misappropriating taxes collected. As the urban population grew, the infrastructure to sustain that mass got suffocated, because no one imagined such an influx of people.DG reminisced.

The advent of the 2010 constitution, and in its, creation of 47 counties, and their headquarters, has invigorated economic growth, people have owned their towns.

The 9th edition summits, therefore, couldn't have been timelier, in Kenya - to speak to Kenya's tax regimes and town's infrastructure.

In the panel, Spain's experts on municipal tax management urged Cities, and especially county towns near cities that:

When cities overflow, excess people spill to the nearest towns. The social and economic dynamics of these towns get distracted. It would mean, that infrastructural approaches and designs by towns neighboring cities must be cognisant of the growth of the city near them - and ready their towns for that futuristic social-economic growth.

Submitting in the panel, DG Mwaniki proffered that going forward, it would be important to have a performance-based incentive to the tax collection by the counties - to appreciate and encourage counties and their managers who perform better.

As of now, Kenya has four cities, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and the recently conferred city status, the Flamingo city, Nakuru.