As I wait in a queue outside the cashiers office at city hall. There is some murmuring going on among the patrons at the front of the queue. The murmuring goes a notch higher as everyone realizes that we must use cash to pay for the different services provided by the council. There is a big commotion as those already in the cashiers office refuse to give cash and demand to use the cashless system.
It is 2030 and it’s
been 15 years or so since the introduction of cashless transactions with the
city council and all other government institutions. Payment for services,
licenses, fines and all transactions are now done through cash cards, similar
to those used to pay for transportation in our matatus, pay supermarket bills
etc. This system of payment was introduced to curb runaway corruption, document
transactions and in the case of matatus for national security reasons.
Some 20 years ago
the situation at city hall was anything but rosy. It was crazy to say the
least. At one time no revenue was collected by the city for close to 3 months.
Yes the city hall financial statement for three months read nil. Money was
collected from the usual places but none was remitted to city hall. Or it was
remitted but there was no record of it. It was normal for many years for 30 to
40% of city hall revenues to disappear between the collection point and the
city hall bank account. For many years this was considered normal and little
was done to address this spill out of public funds. So when entire records
disappeared for revenue collected in three months, this was considered the last
straw. Many were charged with misappropriation of funds and forgery but not
surprising the money was never recovered. After the mass sacking of the entire
financial department, major reforms were introduced that laid the foundation
for the city hall that we are proud of today.
Surprisingly at the
top of the list of the public disaffection with city hall was not with revenue
collection but with the rogue city askaris. To the public these were gangsters
in the name of city askaris who ruled the streets of Nairobi with the blessing
of city hall. Much dreaded than even gun totting police officers were this
group of shabby dressed, club wielding and handcuff swinging hoodlums. With
powers to arrest, brutally assault Kenyans and detain them at city hall. The
city askaris were hated and loathed by all. Kenyans preferred to be arrested
by the police rather than the city askaris.
As it were there
were numerous documented cases of city askaris menace and their evil was well
known. In one sad case the council askaris arrested a young couple on their way
to a church night vigil. The man was mercilessly beaten and unbeknown to the
askaris all this from the moment of wrongful arrest, extortion of a bribe and
subsequent beating were all captured on camera. Inside their infamous pickup
van the lady was sexually molested by both the city askaris and street men.
When pictures of what transpired were aired on TV and newspapers the country
was enraged. Though the city askaris were arrested and charged in a court of
law, in the streets of Nairobi their fellow askaris continued wrecking havoc unabated.
The city askaris
were just the human face of the decay at city hall. From anywhere you stood all
that could be seen was the insurmountable mess both human and administrative.
It was an accepted fact that city hall no longer cleaned or collected garbage
from city estates. Estate roads and lighting were all non-existent, council
houses had gone for half a century without any repairs and services offered by
city hall were nonexistent. City hall had been reduced to a building that the
public patronized to renew their business licenses. In the same light of
decadence, the licenses offered by city hall were valid or not valid depending
on the interpretation of city askaris doing impromptu inspection of businesses.
If they decided that your license was not valid, either because you looked
gullible or they were just too broke to let you go scot free. You definitely
had to part with some cash.
High on the agenda
of the reform commission as per the demands of the Kenyan people was the
stripping of city council of all cash transactions. This was meant to curb the
greed for money that had crippled all other considerations for service delivery
to the common mwananchi. It was also crucial in keeping records of all
transactions and for the first month after its implementation, documented and
accountable revenue of city hall shot up by 800%. Not even the city hall
workers had any idea just how much money was siphoned out of the council. This
was until the publication of the cashless transaction accounts and everyone was
stupefied by just how much public funds had been going missing from the
coffers.
So all renewal of
business licenses, parking fees, land rates and all other form of payments made
to city hall were now done through a cash card. These cards could be bought at
any supermarket, neighborhood duka or even from a money transfer agent.
Depending on the amount one would like to top up, one could do it at the bank,
a money transfer agent, supermarket, petrol station, local duka etc. This cash
cards could further be used for other personal transactions like buying milk at
your local duka, paying for transport on a matatu, buying petrol at a station,
shopping in supermarkets and all major retail outlets.
The infamous city
askaris pick up vans were quickly phased out and replaced by saloon cars. City
askaris were no longer allowed to arrest anybody. If found to be in violation
of any city by-laws one was handed a ticket and booked in the system and asked
to pay the fine within a certain period of time. Failure to do that one would
be liable for arrest at any government office or if booked again for an
offence. Kenyans new bio-metric id allowed for the storage of information on an
individual, different level of personal information could be accessed by
different entities. For Example your financial status could be accessed by a
bank, your medical history by a doctor, city bylaw violation by city askaris or
criminal history or any outstanding arrest warrant by the police. A banker
could not access your criminal history or a policeman on the streets access
your financial status. Only what was relevant to the requisite authority could
be accessed by that official.
Further reforms by
the city council were the online data base of all their employees that could be
accessed by the public. All employees received biometric employment cards that
allowed them access to city hall offices. A member of the public could take the
employment number of city council official and enter it on the council website
and the said member of public would get information on the said employee.
Information such as their picture, duties, area of focus and their supervisors name
and contact. For those without internet access this could be done on their
mobile phones by using a USSD code format. So no longer could a parking
attendant fleece you for paying land rate, or a council askari purporting to
represent the business licensing department. This did away with ghost workers
completely.
Back to the queue
at city hall in 2030 the situation was not getting any better. Members of the
public could not be convinced that the automated billing and payment system was
down and under repair. The public argued that if that was the case then the
cashiers office should be closed until the system was up and running. They
argued how one would tell what amount of money was paid on that day if the only
record would be paper receipts that could be forged or even destroyed. Try to
argue on the part of the council that they used to do the same during the
analogue days did not go very well with the public. What started as a small
dispute on the manner of payment had in a short while attracted the attention
of the media as well as county assembly representatives.
Calls were made to
the governor to avail himself and provide a way forward. But before his arrival
the automated paying system were back online and the public could pay for
services as they were used to. Whether the system malfunction was the work of
insiders or normal breakdown was not immediately established. However
systematic diagnostic checks were ordered and the results would be out in the
next 24 hours. With the fraud investigative arm of the anti corruption unit
fully functioning even at the level of forensic audit. I have no doubt that the
real cause of the system break down would be known and made public. Personally
I don’t believe that this shut down was deliberate, as i truly believe that
Kenya and Kenyans had moved on from its mad city hall ways.
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