City Hall automates revenue collection to curb theft
What you need to know:
City Hall moves to stem revenue pilferage in manual collections.
Jambopay hopes to cover licences, markets, house and building plan approval fees by the end of the year.
Jambopay has signed a contract with Nairobi County to automate all revenue collection from June.
The financial systems vendor will manage the e-payment platform for City Hall as the county government moves to stem revenue pilferage in manual collections.
“We are keen on business permits, land rates and parking fees in the initial stages. We are targeting areas where they’ve been experiencing a lot of revenue pilferage,” said Jambopay CEO Danson Muchemi.
The company will provide payment options including credit and debit cards, mobile money and through the Jambopay agency network.
“We will deploy our technology aimed at decentralising payments to the county from City Hall to homes and offices. Motorists will for example have ability to pay for parking while at home before getting to the city through mobile phone applications,” said Mr Muchemi.
This will spare motorists the hassle of having to look for parking attendants who will now be tasked with verifying payments through hand-held electronic gadgets that track the vehicle’s registration number to the company’s database.
The firm hopes to cover licences, markets, house and building plan approval fees by the end of the year.
“In the next three months, you should see very little interface between people and our payment systems,” Nairobi governor Evans Kidero said.
Jambopay has been given a target is expected to collect Sh600 million per month in the first year. This will rise to Sh1.6 billion per month in the next four years as all services are brought to the cashless system.
The company already has partnerships with payment solutions like M-Pesa, yuCash, Visa, MasterCard, Airtel Money, Orange Money, Kenswitch as well as banks like CBA, I&M and Equity.
Last month, Dr Kidero said that on average, they are collecting nearly Sh1 billion. The county government has set a revenue target of Sh15 billion for the financial year starting July.
Dr Kidero also signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese company for upgrade of the city’s ageing water and sewerage infrastructure on a turn-key basis.
Under the arrangement, China Dalian International Economic and Technical Co-operative Group Limited would organise for concessional funding from government-owned Chinese banks and undertake the works estimated to cost Sh80 billion.
