Nairobi goes for Sh205 million revenue system as JamboPay exits

Nairobi County has set aside Sh205 million for the acquisition of its own integrated county revenue management system.

This comes after reports indicated that none of the firms that applied to replace JamboPay met the technical evaluation criteria after a tendering process, following the county's advertisement of the contract in February.

Governor Mike Sonko, while appearing before the Senate’s County Public Accounts and Investments Committee in April, said his administration would stop outsourcing after the expiry of JamboPay's contract.

Mr Sonko said the county had acquired its own software for collecting payments including land rates and parking fees.

'DONATION'

The new development is contained in the latest county fiscal strategy paper and the debt management strategy paper for financial year 2019/20.

The report revealed that out of the total Sh205 million budget, Sh191 million would be allocated to maintenance of e-payments whereas Sh14 million would be used to install a business intelligence system.

However, this contradicts Mr Sonko’s assertion before senators that the county had received a donation of a revenue-collection software from an undisclosed source in readiness for the expiry of JamboPay’s extended contract, which ended on Tuesday.

“Migration of data from JamboPay to our own data centre concludes on May 7 and will run on a software donated to us, so no procurement was done,” the governor said earlier.

JamboPay has been collecting revenue on behalf of City Hall since 2014 but its contract expired on April 7, 2019. It was extended by one month to ensure smooth transition.

DATA MIGRATION

ICT Chief Officer Mr Halkano Waqo said Nairobi was taking steps to ensure it had its own revenue management system and that Jambo Pay was helping with the migration of systems.

Mr Waqo said City Hall elected to set up its own system after JamboPay announced in January that it would not renew its contract with the county.

“The county managed to transfer all the data from JamboPay to our data centre. The new revenue system will be a big achievement for the regime,” he said.

JamboPay chief executive Danson Muchemi on Tuesday said that they were holding talks on the extension of the contract for the second time.

“We are still in negotiations to see whether the county will extend our contract even as it strives to set up its own system,” he said.