More trouble for Sonko as Safaricom cuts off internet over Sh3.2m debt
Telcom giant Safaricom disconnected internet connection at City Hall on Wednesday morning over an unpaid sh3.2 million debt.
The outage hampered payment services at City Hall for the better part of the day.
This comes at a time the county has called on business owners to renew their permits through the online payment system e-jiji pay.
“Safaricom bills the county sh3.2 million quarterly but payment was delayed and they disconnected internet at 9am. We made a commitment to settle the bill, they reconnected around 11am,” said the County Executive ICT Charles Kerich.
City Hall’s cash office witnessed long queues until evening, though some customers said normalcy in online payments had resumed.
Mr Kerich explained that the unpaid bill will be settled since Safaricom is not among creditors undergoing verification before payments can be made.
The verification is part of a campaign to weed out ghost creditors.
Governor Mike Sonko moved to Court to get a moratorium to allow an audit of pending payments amounting to sh60 billion.
“The payment is due and we will settle it. Safaricom is not among the creditors. That was for pending bills not current contracts. The outage was temporary,” said Mr Kerich.
The JamboPay CEO Danson Muchemi said the only department affected was the cash office, but other online payment platforms were opertional.
He said that they have automated over 90 services and daily revenue collection is harvesting between sh80 million to sh90 million.