Confusion at City Hall as cash figures fail to tally
Confusion continues to rock City Hall over conflicting revenue figures presented by the county’s Treasury and the Webtribe digital platform owned by JamboPay.
Appearing before the Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee Thursday, the county’s head of revenue, Ms Agnes Kisaka, told the committee that the county had realised Sh10.1 billion internally for the 2017/2018 financial year.
But this disagreed with the figure presented by JamboPay Chief Finance Officer Dominic Kosgei to the same committee; he said that the digital solutions firm had collected Sh9.8 billion.
DISPARITIES IN REVENUE
The probe was occasioned by disparities in revenue reported in the media, with Sh14.6 billion and Sh8.2 billion quoted but different media.
Mr Kosgei clarified that the Sh14.6 billion mentioned by JamboPay’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Danson Muchemi, last week included 18 months from January, 2017 to June, 2018, and was not just for the financial year, which he insisted was Sh9.8 billion.
He said that, as at December 2017, they had collected about Sh3.3 billion, and then from January to June 2018, the figure was Sh6.5 billion, bringing the total to Sh9.86 billion, of which Sh6.9 billion was collected through the cash office.
“The county has credentials to view all the revenue reports of the collection done through our platform as they can monitor and do enforcements on all transactions in real time. From our end, I can prove that only Sh9.8 billion was the total revenue collected through our e-payment platform,” said Mr Kosgei.
Ms Kisaka acknowledged that they have a dashboard where they can see the reports, but complained that they have no way of verifying what is in the system.
‘WE CANNOT VERIFY’
“The truth is that we cannot verify what is in the system since we do not have an administrator on our side. We have requested that they give our audit team the backend to check the revenue but they have given us only a verbal agreement,” said Ms Kisaka.
But JamboPay’s chief finance officer disagreed, saying the firm has no control over the system and cannot conduct any transaction without the express approval of the county.
He added that the county’s the Finance executive and staff from the Information Communication Technology Department are the administrators of the system.
The committee’s chairperson, Mr Robert Mbatia, expressed concern over the conflicting reports, saying that the committee will have to summon both parties con-currently to bring the matter to a close.