Mombasa Launches E-parking System, To Raise Revenue

Mombasa government launched electronic vehicle parking (e-parking) yesterday.

The e-parking system, using mobile USSD technology, will seek to eliminate all the revenue leakages in the County Government’s Transport Department.

Currently, Mombasa collects Sh1 million from parking fees.

At least 6,000 vehicles park within the region, said Mombasa Deputy Governor, Dr William Kingi during the launch of the new e-parking system at Treasury Square.

“We now expect to double our daily revenue collection from the current Sh1 million to Sh2 million. Going digital in the collection of parking fees is the ultimate panacea to the problems we have been facing in transport department,” said Kingi.

He said previously they used to depend on the honesty of the parking attendants to collect the Sh1 million parking fees.

The system will not only make it easy for car owners to pay but will also ensure the integrity of the payment system, said Kingi.

“It will no longer depend on the faithfulness of the parking attendant to ensure safe transmission of the payments to the County Government. we urge motorist to embrace this new system,” he said.

Kingi, who was accompanied by County Secretary Francis Thoya, Transport Executive Taufiq Balala and among other county officials, said they will continue digitizing all the county department.

So far, the Mombasa administration has digitized the issuance of business permits, payments of land rates, payment of services at Coast Provincial General Hospital and now the parking fees.

“The digitization of revenue streams has seen us increase the share of local revenue from Sh2.4 billion in the year 2015 to about 3.2 billion in 2018,” said Kingi.

Car Importers Association of Kenya National chairman Peter Otieno also welcomed the action, saying that both the county and the people will gain.