Tourists take photographs of a lion at the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Narok County has picked KAPS — an electronic ticketing firm that offers car parking payment solutions, access control and revenue management systems — to collect gate fees to the world famous game reserve. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
The county has picked KAPS — an electronic ticketing firm that offers car parking payment solutions, access control and revenue management systems — to collect gate fees to the world famous game reserve.
Entry fees to the game reserve is $80 for adult foreigners per day and $45 for children. East Africans pay Sh1,000 to visit the park while residents pay Sh1,200.
Narok County collects about Sh3 billion annually in gate fees and related levies from the park.
Narok county has appointed a new contractor to collect access fees into the Maasai Mara National Reserve eight months after it terminated a similar contract with Equity Bank.
The county has picked KAPS — an electronic ticketing firm that offers car parking payment solutions, access control and revenue management systems — to collect gate fees to the world famous game reserve.
The new agreement, effective from Thursday, will see tour operators requisition e-tickets from KAPS, eradicating paper tickets and smartcards.
“Any paper tickets as of today should ideally be surrendered to Kato (Kenya Association of Tour Operators) for verification and replacement with an e-ticket,” Fred Kaigua, Kato chief executive, said in a circular.
“It is anticipated that the new system will go a long way to seal existing loopholes in the current system.”
Entry fees to the game reserve is $80 for adult foreigners per day and $45 for children. East Africans pay Sh1,000 to visit the park while residents pay Sh1,200.
Narok County collects about Sh3 billion annually in gate fees and related levies from the park.
In June, the county terminated a contract with Equity Bank for collection of access fees saying the system had failed. The county government took up the responsibility of collecting gate fees with the help of Kato.
The deal with Equity, which introduced smart cards, had raised eyebrows because of a high commission rate of seven per cent on a fixed income rate of Sh1.5 billion. If revenues fell below Sh1.5 billion the bank was still to be paid Sh105 million.
Following the installation of the smart card system gate collections rose by more than three times to Sh609.5 million ($6.9 million) at the end of June 2012, from Sh201.4 million ($2.2 million) at the end of June 2011.
Collections from pre-booking tickets using the Equity Smart Card in the year ending June 2012 were Sh967.3 million ($10.9 million), a 15.5 per cent increase on collections by Somak, a tour company, which collected Sh837.2 million ($9.3 million) for the year ended June 2011.
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