NMS, revenue body launch digital payment system

Major General Mohammed Badi Director-General Nairobi Metropolitan Services speaking during the launch of the Nairobi Circular Economy. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

Nairobi residents and traders will start paying for county services digitally starting next month.

The Nairobi Metropolitan Service and the Kenya Revenue Authority on Friday rolled out an integrated collection system.

The new system dubbed Nairobi Revenue System (NRS) will enable residents and business people to easily pay market fees, rents for county houses, bus parking fees, land rates, and public health certification fees, among other services.

It has been developed by NMS in collaboration with KRA and the Nairobi County government.

“We have documented all county business processes and registered customers with a total of Sh1 billion collected during the initial roll-out phase,” said NMS Director General Mohamed Badi.

He said revenue collection has been hindered by multiple standalone systems, posing various challenges on accountability, security and stability.

“The existing data to support service delivery and revenue collection is incomplete, outdated and in some cases lack data credibility or is unavailable.

“This has created service delivery gaps to the citizenry further fueled by shortfalls in revenue collection,” said Badi.

KRA Commissioner-General Githii Mburu said the system will help net businesses within Nairobi in bid to expand the revenue base as they will be monitoring the payments.

“We have focused on ensuring Nairobi has a credible revenue collection system as well as establishing credible data to determine who are owners of properties and as well people doing businesses in Nairobi,” said Mr Mburu.

The officials said they will ensure sustainable capacity building and training for the system users across the institutions.