• County risked losing at least Sh80 million per day with the expiry
• After intense negotiations, the county, through the secretary, extended the contract to allow for a smooth transition
Image: FILE
City Hall has extended JamboPay’s contract by one month to avoid a financial crisis and disruption of services.
The county extended the revenue collector’s contract on Friday. It was to expire yesterday. The county risked losing at least Sh80 million per day with the expiry. It had not put in place an alternative system to take over.
On Tuesday last week, the firm informed City Hall that it would disable its system on Sunday night. “At that time, WebTribe (JamboPay) will be unable to carry out any transactions for the county. For the avoidance of doubt, all services including, but not limited to, payments and enforcement, will be disabled after April 7, 2019,” CEO Danson Muchemi said in a letter addressed to acting county secretary Pauline Kahiga.
WebTribe, JamboPay’s mother company, also demanded the settlement of Sh60 million debt. The parties had been meeting since the letter was sent. After intense negotiations, the county extended the contract by 30 days to allow for a smooth transition and migration of JamboPay’s EjijiPay system.
On Wednesday, ICT chief officer Halkano Waqo said they were engaging WebTibe to ensure services were not disrupted.
"We’ve been engaging the company on a smooth transition. We’re trying to disengage from them, but we want this to have minimal interruptions on services,” he said.
Initially, JamboPay told City Hall it would require at least two weeks to fully migrate its systems. The county is said to have banked on a clause in the original contract that allows for the extension of the period.
Concerning the Sh60 million debt, the parties agreed the matter be addressed as a separately by the Finance executive. JamboPay was contracted in April 2014 to automate revenue collection for a period of five years. This was after it emerged that City Hall was losing billions of shilling of revenue to corrupt and unscrupulous staff.
Within the first year, the revenues rose to Sh14 billion from Sh7 billion in the previous year. Currently, all revenue streams, in excess of 134, have been automated. The firm collects between Sh80 million and Sh100 million a day. Last month, it collected Sh1.5 billion.