The shift to digitization in the country has not always been smooth.
We can refer to the case of making payments in Nairobi County: parking fees, for instance, have received their fair share of criticism, primarily in the manner residents were tasked to complete such payments. You can refer to the entire fiasco here, and at one time, there were two payment platforms that made the whole exercise chaotic.
That aside, it has been revealed that residents of the county, including traders, will be paying for Nairobi services via digital means.
The development should be live by December 2021.
According to a report by the Standard, the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) and KRA have launched an integrated collection platform that will allow traders to make payments through it.
The platform is named the Nairobi Revenue System (NRS).
Basically, NRS allows residents to make payments such as market fees, bus parking charges, and land rates, to mention a few, directly to the county.
The system is built by KRA, NMS, and the County government.
According to a statement by NMS, the city has documented business processes and registered customers.
During the pilot, the system managed to collect KES 1 billion.
Admittedly, NMS admits that the County’s revenue collected system, especially on the digital end, has been performing poorly because there are so many platforms doing the same thing. This has led to issues such as lack of security and accountability.
“The existing data to support service delivery and revenue collection is incomplete, outdated and in some cases lack data credibility or is unavailable. This has created service delivery gaps to the citizenry further fueled by shortfalls in revenue collection,” says NMS Director-General Mohamed Badi.
“We have focused on ensuring Nairobi has a credible revenue collection system as well as establishing credible data to determine who are owners of properties and as well people doing businesses in Nairobi,” adds KRA Commissioner-General Githii Mburu.
