City Hall officials differ over mode of payment for seasonal matatu parking tickets
Matatus line up to pick passengers in Nairobi. Top officials of Nairobi City County have differed on the payment of the seasonal parking tickets. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Last week, the county government directed all matatu saccos to pay for their seasonal parking through the City Hall cash office.
- The directive brought controversy between the head of parking Tom Tinega and Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke who wanted it reversed.
- Mr Tinega said that the directive to pay through the cash office was intended to audit the number of matatus in the city.
- He said that the move was to ensure that all information on matatus is captured in their database
The auditing of all matatus operating in the city has suffered a setback after top officials of Nairobi County differed on the payment of the seasonal parking tickets.
Last week, the county government directed all matatu saccos to pay for their seasonal parking through the City Hall cash office in a bid to streamline the matatu transport operations and cancelled the cashless payment normally done through the eJijiPay platform.
However, the directive brought controversy between the head of parking Tom Tinega and Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke who wanted it reversed.
Mr Mueke said the county had gone digital and it did not make any sense for the matatu operators to queue at the cash office while they could conveniently pay using their mobile phones
But speaking to the Nation, Mr Tinega said that the directive to pay through the cash office was intended to audit the number of matatus in the city and the revenue they generate instead of relying on information from the e-platform.
“This is a temporary measure so that we can have a database of all the revenue collected through seasonal (tickets) payments. I don’t understand why [we should cancel] the advertisement,” said Mr Tinega.
BANKERS CHEQUES
The county had earlier announced that payment for the seasonal tickets would be done through bankers’ cheques and that no cash payments would be accepted until further notice.
“We would also like to advise that no cash, agency payment, personal cheques or bank transfer slips will be accepted until further notice,” read the advertisement.
Mr Tinega said that the move was to ensure that all information on matatus is captured in their database since some have been avoiding paying revenue to the county government.
“With this information in our database we can be able to monitor how much we get from a certain sacco and if the revenue changes we can track the officials to explain why,” said Mr Tinega.
However, City Hall has insisted that no payments for monthly seasonal tickets will be accepted at the cash office and that all payments must be done through eJijiPay.
