The controversial Local Authority Integrated Financial Operations Management System (Laifoms) is set to be retired as city hall moves to install an integrated city revenue management system (ICMS) ending a long relationship the authority has had with JamboPay. From tender documents published on Friday, the local authority is seeking for a new partner to install the new city revenue management system (ICMS) replacing Laifoms that’s currently been running parallel.
Laiforms was installed with sole intention to address several concerns that local authorities faced in service delivery. These shortcomings included lack of proper record keeping that in end resulted in a myriad of problems. The system had its pros as well as cons, it was mostly mired with controversy that have caused Nairobi County to replace it with a new system.
Web Tribe Limited, the owners of JamboPay e-payment’s contract with City Hall is set to expire, but the relationship between the two hasn’t always been rosy. According to City Hall’s ICT director George Ombua, the authority has been using Laifoms but with many challenges that did not fit within the best practices of technology at the moment. The decision to have a new system in place comes after the authority’s intention to unravel discrepancies between revenue collected through Laifoms and the JamboPay system.
For instance, during 2017/18 period City Hall reported a collection of KSh10.1 billion while JamboPay reported KSh9.86 billion, raising questions whether the Sh240 million is all City Hall collected outside the electronic billing system. As at the time of this article, JamboPay was tasked with managing 85 revenue streams while City Hall had 51 under its control through Laifoms.
Web Tribe was not far from controversy after it withheld close to Sh2.82 million for 57 days in January 2015 and Sh51 million last February for six days raising concerns whether City Hall’s funds had been used for un-authorized trading. The contract stipulates that Web Tribe settles all City Hall’s transactions within 12 hours for cash transactions and three days for electronic payments.
