The Nairobi City County government has deployed compliance and enforcement teams to all 17 subcounties in an effort to meet its Sh20 billion revenue target as the current fiscal year comes to a close.
On Tuesday, City Hall deployed officers to visit business premises to ensure that each has complied with the directive of getting a Unified Business Permit (UBP) and other relevant permits following the expiration of a three-month grace period.
The county government’s strategy is similar to the one used by the Kenya Revenue Authority, which deployed 1,406 enforcement officers to ensure compliance. However, the High Court overturned the deployment.
Each county officer will be issued a legitimate staff identification card with a QR code that business owners can scan to confirm the identity of the enforcement officers.
The team will check for compliance with land rates, parking fees, UBP, building permits and approvals, billboards, advertisements, and market service charges, including the cess fee.
The officers will also be in charge of checking for fire certificates, medical and health certificates, and other charges specified in the Financial Act of 2024.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has stated that his administration will go above and beyond by publishing the officers’ names in local dailies and on the county website in order to protect residents from unscrupulous individuals.
“The names and contact details of the teams will be published in the dailies and on the county website so as to prevent impostors. The officers will soon have staff IDs with a QR code for members of the public to scan and verity their legitimacy,” Mr Sakaja said.
The county governor also said the county has streamlined the UBP system since its roll out in January and urged traders to comply.
“In January 2024 I launched the Unified Business Permit (UBP) and directed that enforcement would not be done for a period of three months to allow Nairobians to acclimatize with the new license regime.”
“In those three months, we have streamlined our identification process which will have properly uniformed officers who will have gadgets that will be able to detect the status and validity of UBPs,” he added.
Those who fail to pay dues will be arrested.
The new measure is seen as an effort by the county administration to meet its own source revenue target of Sh20 billion for the current fiscal year.
