The Nairobi County government has lost about Sh400 million in revenue since the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) took over collection of parking fees.
The city county posted Sh1,058,855,861 in earnings, a drop from Sh1,457,939,312 in the 2019/2020 financial year.
County officials occasioned the drop to the confusion brought about by the introduction of two parking payment USSDs, *235# run by City hall and *647# by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.
Read: Nairobi Motorists Enjoy Free Parking After Technical Hitch
KRA took over the collection of parking fees on behalf of the NMS.
According to Nairobi County Budget and Appropriations Committee chairperson Robert Mbatia, the loss was occasioned by confusion over the two USSD numbers, system downtime and demotivated and non-experienced stuff.
“System downtime has contributed a lot towards the decline in revenues. Within every three weeks, there must be a system downtime.”
Mbatia cited confusion over the two USSD numbers as another issue.
“Two, there is still confusion over the two USSD payment codes for parking fees. The lack of reconciling the two has seen people pay using the old USSD code thus denying KRA revenue,” said Mbatia.
Read also: Court Extends Orders Barring Increment of Parking Fees in Nairobi
He said that although the parking fees would still be collected by KRA, the stuff assigned were not experienced.
“I still believe it is a better approach going to KRA than how we used to operate previously. If those issues are solved, we will see a boost in revenue collections,” he said.
Former Governor Evans Kidero contracted Webtribe under Jambopay to collect the parking fees from 2014. After the ouster of former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, the Webtribe’s contract was terminated, paving way for City hall’s introduction of it’s own USSD code *235#.
Shortly thereafter, NMS took over the county government’s operations and appointed KRA to collect parking fees on its behalf through USSD code *647#
Since then, the system has been marred with confusion and irregularities among vehicle owners.
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