Cashless payments are expected to spare motorists the hassle of looking for parking attendants. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
City Hall Monday directed a stop to cash payments from Tuesday morning as the piloting of the cashless system along the road got off to a slow start.
Financial vendor JamboPay, the firm handling the e-payment system, said that a lot of motorists had been caught unawares and were unprepared.
Parking fee payment along Haile Selassie Avenue in Nairobi will be exclusively cashless beginning Tuesday ahead of the full county switch on Monday next week.
City Hall Monday directed a stop to cash payments from Tuesday morning as the piloting of the cashless system along the road got off to a slow start.
Only 30 per cent of motorists paid through the new system for the 133 available public parking slots along the road.
“Today we have been using the two systems in parallel but the instructions from the deputy governor are that we shouldn’t bring our receipt books tomorrow,” said one of the county attendants.
Financial vendor JamboPay, the firm handling the e-payment system, said that a lot of motorists had been caught unawares and were unprepared.
“There’s a need for more communication. A lot of people were unaware of the switch but the response was good,” said CEO Danson Muchemi.
Agents deployed on the ground helped motorists with opening of the mobile wallets/ accounts through which the payments are made; a process that takes about five minutes.
“Some of the motorists were in a hurry to be on their way and chose not to use the system but pay cash to us.”
The wallets are created through a mobile USSD code or a Google Android app.
Motorists are required to deposit cash in the e-wallets via their mobile money transfer service like M-Pesa or have the money deposited in the account by agents.
Mr Muchemi said that in the next few days, the agents’ network would expand to include all banking agents and retailers like Nakumatt Supermarkets.
Motorists who spoke to the Business Daily expressed mixed reactions with some saying that the previous system was okay. Tech-savvy motorists, however, said that the county was moving in the right direction.
“I don’t mind it. It’s quite an easy, hassle-free system which frees me from having to look for the attendant,” said Samson Gichohi.
Mr Muchemi said that the system was handling the payments comfortably. But the real test would be on Monday when it would be expected to handle more than 13,000 parking payments daily across the Nairobi.
Most of parking space on Haile Selassie Avenue is exclusively held by private companies and government institutions like the Central Bank and Cooperative Bank.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
