Governor Mike Sonko seeks to overhaul City Hall cash office

Governor Mike Mbuvi sonko. (Photo: Beverlyne Musili/Standard)

Nairobi county government loses approximately Sh2 billion a month from unaccounted revenue due to weak transaction records.

It has now emerged that only 14 out of 136 revenue streams are automated with the rest being manual thus making it easy for officials to pocket money undetected.

Records at City Hall indicate that about Sh14 million is collected daily from the 14 streams while revenue from the other 122 cannot be verified as they still use manual receipts. The revelation was made after Governor Mike Sonko demanded to know how much was collected from a private firm contracted to operate the electronic payment platform for cash collections.

The Governor wrote to Web Tribe Ltd, the owners of JamboPay and Jijipay platform, demanding to know its directors and how much they have collected two weeks.

“I am reliably informed that your company is contracted by the county and operates JamboPay of cash collection. To enable me familiarise myself with the system, I hereby direct you to provide my office by close of business today with the documents requested,” the letter dated August 23, reads in part.

Web Tribe CEO, Danson Muchemi wrote back the same day forwarding the documents while adding that the same information was on the real-time eJijiPAY electronic revenue collection dash board.

“We wish to inform you that JamboPay only collects 14 revenue streams out of the 136 revenue streams specified in the county finance act,” Muchemi said.

The 14 streams include daily parking, seasonal parking, parking penalties, single business permit, house rents, land rates, liquor licence, market rents, miscellaneous, E-Construction, Fire, Health, advertisement and regularisation.

On Wednesday, Sonko made an impromptu tour of the cash office and found officers holding Sh7 million being the collection for the previous day.

“From 14 streams, we are getting about Sh14 million, this means if we seal all loopholes, the amount can rise to Sh100 million a day,” Sonko said.