CC image courtesy of Joan Gil
Kenya’s Narok County has announced plans to establish a new electronic revenue collection for the Masai Mara National Park after a Kenyan court dismissed a case filed by Equity Bank to reinstate its revenue collection contract with the county.
HumanIPO reported last week the Kenyan courts had dismissed the case filed by the bank to reinstate collection via its prepaid smart card service.
Narok County said it was losing revenue because the service had not sealed the loopholes it intended to and had also experienced much major breakdowns.
In a statement the county government said it “has put in place a temporary manual revenue collection system at the reserve as the industry gears up for tourist high season. The manual ticket based system is in place as it shops for a new smart system that has features that would guard against revenue leaks throughout the highly lucrative high season.”
The move is designed to counter losses incurred from the dispute, with the county and tour operators fearing they could lose about KSh250 million (US$2.9 million) if the dispute continues and a new system is not established.
“This being the start of the tourist high season, the county has made adequate arrangements including provision of security hologrammed tickets to access the game reserve in the interim,” the statement said further.
Equity Bank links the failure of the park fees collection system on its migration to a new technology platform and shortage of cards, which forced it to issue letters to Masai Mara visitors as a short term identification mode
Though not favoured by the locals of Narok County the eTicketing system has been recognised internationally, winning a technology award in Berlin, Germany, earlier last year after it tripled fee collection at the national park.
