The Mountain Journal
Murang’a county government has entered a pact with a leading mobile service provider in digitizing devolved services specializing in revenue collection.
In the pact, Safaricom has rolled out internet connectivity to support the devolved unit’s revenue collection after a successful pilot programme in Murang’a Municipality.
Governor Irungu Kang’ata said paying for services through digital platforms since September last year has been successful, thanking Murang’a residents for their support.
“We started online collection of taxes in five streams and we can confirm the revenue has increased as compared to the era of manual collection,” said the Governor.
He said he was working with experts to ensure all the 22 devolved services by the end of this month will be digitized for the interest of collecting all the revenues.
Kang’ata said single permit and liquor licenses licenses will be paid digitally to ensure transparency in the trading activities
“Payment of services through online will reduce cases of corruption and also seal loopholes where the revenue used to get lost to,” said the Governor when he hosted Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa.
He observed that the paying digitally will make accessing of services easier by reducing time for application and processing of required services as it will not be necessary for one to visit our offices to apply and pay for any service.
Ndegwa said they were supporting the national and county governments to achieve 100 percent digitalization in two years.
“Already Murang’a county government is collecting levies through digital platforms, a move the Governor Irungu Kang’ata has confirmed increased revenue collection,| said Ndegwa.
Ndegwa fielding questions from the media said the issue of users of the MPESA platform being double charged when paying for services will be checked.
The residents in Murang’a have been complaining of being unable to pay for the county government services in absence of credit in their phones and also charged the transaction cost.
“ The concerns from the locals will be looked into to ensure the users of the platforms are comfortable,” said the CEO.
www.themountainjournal.co.ke
