City Hall to spend Sh70m in inventory and digitising its assets

Nairobi County government will spend Sh70 million in an inventory and valuation of county-owned properties to have in place a comprehensive asset and valuation register, a move aimed at enhancing its revenue. The plan will see City Hall initiate compilation and tagging of its key assets as it grapples with lack of accurate asset management register. Chief Officers of the more than 20 sub-sectors in the Ann Kananu-led administration will tasked with spearheading the exercise. According to the Nairobi County Annual Development Plan for the financial year ending June 30, 2023, Sh40 million will be spent in the first phase of the exercise which aims at tagging 30 percent of the identified properties. Another Sh30 million will be spent in the valuation of 20 percent of key assets to come up with an accurate valuation register. Acting County Secretary Mr Jairus Musumba said that the county government has not come up with a comprehensive register of its assets as well as their valuation since the transition from county council to a devolved unit. Consequently, the exercise is geared towards identifying the total number of properties the county government owns and having them in a single registry. This, he explained, will help to identify, track and measure the most critical, essential and non-essential county assets. “When Nairobi was shifting from a city council to a county government, total number of county properties might not have been captured during the transition. But by having an asset register, all will be mapped out and the county will be updated on the number of assets it has,” said Mr Musumba. The county government will then digitise the asset management register by linking all the assets to the Geographical Information System (GIS). The GIS system has already been set up with the only remaining thing being its integration with revenue system and key sectors in the county government before it goes live. The system is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyse, manage, and present all types of geographical data and with it, it will be easier for the county to access information when digitised rather than the physical data. Further, Mr Musumba pointed out that the county government has over the years lacked an asset management policy. To cure this, he said the Finance department will establish an all-inclusive asset management committee which will formulate and complete a policy on management of county assets as part of enhancing the county’s asset management services. After the compilation, he said the next step will be valuation of identified county’s key assets with the aim to enhance revenue realised from the properties. In May this year, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) in collaboration with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) also launched an inventory of county rental houses and tenants as it sought to identify and map out all county rental houses as well as verify tenants residing in the said houses.