Economy

City Hall brings in e-clamp to catch parking cheats

clamp

A clamped car on a Nairobi street. City Hall has bought 2,000 clamps in a fresh drive to boost parking fee collection. PHOTO | FILE

City Hall has upgraded its electronic parking payment system to track defaulters in its latest bid to boost collection from its parking bays.

The system, introduced in Nairobi last month, has been fitted with electronic clamping (e-clamping), a device that tracks and loads fines on motorists who fail to pay parking bay fees.

The instalment of the e-clamping device will mean that even if a vehicle is not physically clamped for non-payment of parking fees, the penalty captured in the system will continue to accumulate until it is settled.

“The e-payment system will from next week have capability for electronic clamping of unpaid vehicles,” said Danson Muchemi, CEO of JamboPay, the company that is handling the county’s electronic payments.

“Parking attendants use mobile devices to check vehicle parking payment status and if payment is not received within 45 minutes of the query, the system will automatically clamp the vehicle.”

At a penalty which accumulates at the rate of Sh4,000 per day until city askaris catch up with the defaulter, failure to pay parking fees is set to become one of the most expensive affairs in Nairobi.

The electronic devices will be backed by about 2,000 new clamps that City Hall said it had bought in a fresh campaign to boost collection from its parking lots. The new clamps are expected to be delivered next week.

READ: JamboPay signs up agents to sell Nairobi e-parking tickets

Mr Muchemi said that since deploying the e-payment system, they had detected significant non-payment of parking fees which had been going on.

“The system, which has been in operation for the last one month, shows that only 43 per cent of motorists regularly pay for daily parking as a result of weak enforcement by county officials,” he said.

Head of revenue Luke Gatimu said that the city has 300 working clamps after some were vandalised.

He said that since parking payment went cashless focus has shifted to enforcement using attendants.

Compliance for matatus, which pay for seasonal tickets, has rises to 80 per cent with the county keen on ensuring that all motorists comply with the cashless payment model.

So far, Sh860 million has been collected from motorists using the e-payment system.