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CORRUPTION: City Hall to stop all cash payments


City Hall will stop all manual cash payments at the beginning of the next financial year in a bid to end corruption and improve service delivery.

The move comes ahead of the March 31 rate payments and licence renewals deadline.

“All our esteemed customers should pay for their land rates and business permit renewals by March 31 2016 as the deadline is fast approaching,” said a statement from the  ICT County Executive Anne Lokidor

Ms Lokidor said all payments for land rates, parking, rentals and construction approvals will be made to the electronic payment platform Ejiji Pay.

BOOSTING REVENUE COLLECTION

Ms Lokidor said the move is aimed at boosting revenue collection, as well as easing the delivery of services to city residents.

“The high and rapid uptake of e-payments shows Nairobians are happy with the convenience and ease with which they transact with the county government through Ejiji Pay,” said Ms Lokidor

Ms Lokidor noted that licence renewals for single business permits have all been moved to the online portal , offering a good test case for migrating all other payment services.

The ICT executive, who is also in charge of the Education, Social Services and Youth docket, said a special help desk will be set up to assist those who may have difficulties opening e-accounts once manual payments end.

She added that an estimated 69,000 businesses have already renewed their single business permits for 2016 ahead of this month’s deadline.

This is more than half of the about 112,000 businesses registered on the portal that is powered by IT company Web Tribe Ltd.

TRAINING MATATU SACCOS

Ms Lokidor said the county government had also stepped up training on use of the e-portal, working with groups such as matatu saccos which make monthly parking payments to the county.

“No one will be left behind, we will make compliance easy and assist those who have difficulties, but really we have to move over from the manual payments which are cumbersome and an avenue for revenue leakage,” said Ms Lokidor.

She said  that land rates, housing and market rentals as well as construction permit clients have been the most hesitant to migrate to the electronic platform and the Nairobi County government is working on a sensitisation campaign for this category of clients.