Omodho pointed out that one will be able to pay their parking for a specific period of time depending on the location of their vehicle/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 16 – Motorists in Nairobi will now be able to pay for their parking fees through mobile phones following the signing of an E-Payment Services agreement between the City Council of Nairobi (CCN) and mobile service providers.
Speaking ahead of the initiative set to be launched next Wednesday, a consultant Gideon Omodho explained that motorists will key in their vehicle registration number in an application and then make payment.
“You will be able to key in the number plate of your vehicle. The next question then will be how you want to pay. Do you want to pay through a payment retention ID or pay using E-Value,” he stated.
“Once you have paid, then you get a receipt on your phone that shows the amount and the vehicle number plate and you can walk away. You do not have to have anything displayed,” he said.
Omodho pointed out that one will be able to pay their parking for a specific period of time depending on the location of their vehicle.
“You will be able to say whether you want parking for one month, three months or for a day. Once you choose the period that you want to park is when you will be told to say where exactly you are parking because there are different prices for different areas,” he said.
“If you are parking on a street there is a price for that. If you are parking off-street there is a price for that and if you are parking within the market, there is a price for that.”
City Hall on Thursday signed the agreement with Yu while Safaricom, Airtel and Orange are expected to join the initiative early next week.
According to Omodho, the payment for parking and the penalties for not paying will be dealt with by different groups of people.
“The inspector is not going to know whether the vehicle is compliant or not compliant because we are trying to minimize the information given to them so that you do not give them a bribe so that they let you go. Once they query that into the data base, it will be able to respond automatically to the clamper if you are non-compliant and then they will clamp your vehicle,” he said.
“There is a different group that once you have paid will also get information that the following vehicle parked on this street has paid and they can now de-clamp.”
“We are also trying to link up with sources of information. These are people like the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the Registrar of Lands. Once your vehicle is non-compliant, KRA is able to give us information about the owner of that vehicle and we are able through the mobile phone providers to send a message to the person that his or her vehicle is non-compliant,” he added.
Town Clerk Roba Duba indicated that the system will be free of corruption as it will not allow any transaction of cash between attendants and motorists.
“The parking supervisor will get from his phone whether this vehicle parked has complied by way of making the payment. If it has not, it will be recorded here and tomorrow, the system will have taken note that you are a person who is making attempt at evading and it will continue producing you until you make payment, it will not forgive and it will not forget,” he said.
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