Auditor-general casts doubts on Nairobi’s e-payment system

What you need to know:

  • In the latest 2014/2015 report, JamboPay has been put on the spot with the Nairobi County being accused of weak internal control on revenue collected as it solely relies on JamboPay.
  • According to Mr Edward Ouko, JamboPay has continuously failed to remit funds on time despite having stated in the contract that the money collected will be deposited within 72 hours.

The Auditor-General has raised concerns over the effectiveness of Nairobi County’s Ejiji Pay electronic system in revenue collection.

Webtribe which owns JamboPay has not been in agreement with the auditor-general’s report which he has consistently recommended it should be cancelled over faulty selection.

In the latest 2014/2015 report, JamboPay has been put on the spot with the Nairobi County being accused of weak internal control on revenue collected as it solely relies on JamboPay.

According to Mr Edward Ouko, JamboPay has continuously failed to remit funds on time despite having stated in the contract that the money collected will be deposited within 72 hours.

“The contract provide that funds collected should be remitted to the county government within 72hours upon receipt. However, review of records reveal that it takes up to a month to remit the funds,” said Mr Ouko.

The report also queried the data on parking posted on their website saying that registration of vehicles did not confirm any registered number issued by the Kenya Revenue Authority while 294 vehicles that had been captured had blank registration numbers or less than four characters long.

He raised concern on the basis of retention and payment of transaction made through the system where Webtribe receives 4.5 per cent of money transacted through the system.

Mr Ouko also questioned the irregularities on the JamboPay payment system, stating that the county only accesses data processed by the system and has no control of the revenue processing activity.

“Any manipulation of data either through omission or commission would not be known by the county government,” stated the report.

The legal department was put on the spot over misuse of funds where in the 2014/15 budget they had allocated Sh43.5 million but spent Sh1.1 billion to pay lawyers.