City Hall averts crisis with JamboPay extension

A Nairobi County attendant collects parking fees from a motorist in the city centre. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Had the contract not been extended, motorists in Nairobi would have had to pay for parking fees manually.
  • Traders would also have had to wait in lines for hours just to renew their single business permits.
  • The extension is to allow migration of the eJijipay system to the county.

Nairobi residents can now breathe a sigh of relief after JamboPay agreed to an extension of their contract with the county government by at least a month.

There were fears that residents would resort to manual payments for essential services, including parking, single business permits, among others.

The extension agreement followed a formal request by City Hall to Web Tribe Limited, JamboPay’s parent company, on Friday asking the electronic payment services provider for an extension of their contract to allow smooth transition and migration of eJijipay system.

This came after Web Tribe chief executive Danson Muchemi informed the county they would terminate services at midnight on April 7.

“We have agreed to the extension of our engagement with City Hall for a limited duration to help them with the migration of the system. We will not shut down our services,” said Mr Muchemi on Sunday.

The tech boss said the deal is a culmination of days of intense negotiations with the two parties struggling to find a middle ground.

Last month, Mr Muchemi decried the county’s slow pace in the planned migration of the revenue collection system.

 Last week Nairobi County ICT and e-Government chief officer Halkhano Waqo said that they have been engaging JamboPay since their letter to the county to have them midwife the transition process before City Hall takes over the system permanently.

“Everybody knows we are transiting, a process that is not going to happen overnight. We have everything at our disposal but of course we are engaging JamboPay to continue nursing the process for some time,” said Mr Waqo.