City motorists are defaulting on parking payments while citing system failures by Jambopay, an electronic service provider.
This comes after the parking department carried out a crackdown in the Central Business District on Wednesday where over 200 vehicles were clamped.
County director of parking services Fredrick Ndunyu said revenue from parking, which is one of Nairobi’s main sources of income, had gone down in the last few days.
Mr Ndunyu led the operation on Tom Mboya Street, Kirinyaga Road mechanics areas, Kweria and near Old Nation House where he said there was little or no compliance.
He warned motorists not to wait until the last minute to pay, warning that defaulters face stiff penalties.
“ Just go into the system and pay, if you don’t, we shall issue you with a charge sheet that will require you to pay Sh2,300 instead of the normal Sh300”. But if you default again we will tow your vehicle and slap you with a Sh7,300 penalty. There is no short cut,” said Mr Ndunyu.
He said the department however faced challenges, including insufficient clampdown equipment while over 53 clampdown tools were destroyed this year by defaulters.
But taxi driver John Mucheru said most defaults were caused by what he termed as frequent Jambopay system delays whenever they were making payments online.
“ When you use wallet platform by Jambopay, there is a lot of delay, usually between 20 to 30 minutes. I have been trying to send money using this system. As you can see, I have to pay twice. It is very slow,” he said.
Jambopay chief executive Danson Muchemi, however, dismissed the allegation that the system was slow and instead accused the motorists of unwillingness to comply.
Mr Muchemi said the system had improved service delivery and that it was impossible for the attendants to electronically clamp and unclamp the vehicles yet payment through it was slow.
“The system is used to clamp vehicles and also release them how is it therefore that it can not process payments? posed Mr Muchemi.
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