City Hall extends JamboPay deal by 30 days

City Hall has agreed a 30-day contract extension with e-payment firm JamboPay averting a fees collection hitch starting today after expiry of the deal last night.

Acting County Secretary Pauline Kahiga told the Business Daily that the extension will enable City Hall to migrate to its internal revenue collection system whose tender was advertised in February.

JamboPay was contracted in 2014 to automate collections to City Hall and reduce revenue loss through cash payments and pilferages.

It automated 85 revenue streams that include parking, land rates, Single Business Permits (SBPs) while City Hall manually handles 51 streams.

“We have agreed to extend the deal for 30 days to allow us smoothly migrate to our own internal system which we believe will be ready in a month’s time” Ms Kahiga said on Sunday.

Ms Kahiga added that the county will also acquire the payment platform software as part of the deal.

The Business Daily could not establish if this is the ejijiPAY platform where residents pay for parking, land rates, Single Business Permits (SBPs) and other fees.

Nairobi sought a private firm in February to install an integrated city revenue management system (ICMS) to replace the manual systems that has been in use alongside the JamboPay e-payment platform.

The extension comes despite a contract breach by JamboPay.

Ward representatives had called for the termination of the deal, saying the firm withheld Sh2.82 million for 57 days in January 2015 and Sh51 million last February for six days, which was a breach of contract.

The contract requires JamboPay to settle all City Hall’s transactions within 12 hours for cash transactions and three days for all electronic payments in daily batches.

City Hall has struggled to meet its revenue targets since the 2013-14 period despite automation of the payment systems.

Nairobi collected Sh8.8 billion in the year to last June, a 10 percent fall from Sh9.8 billion generated in a similar period to June 2017.