A few weeks ago, I stopped by a local shopping centre on a Saturday morning to pick up an item from a specialist shop in the building. Now, I don’t particularly like shopping at this centre as it has very poor parking and has singlehandedly and detrimentally altered the traffic patterns in the area. So I wasn’t aware that there was a new virtual sherriff in town. Ten minutes after I had parked outside the building and was perusing the item I wanted to purchase in the shop, I received a text message on my mobile phone telling me “Dear Motorist, KB****Z parked at Ngong Road has not paid for parking. Dial *647# to pay Kes 200.00 within 15 minutes.” Look, I was not on Ngong road. I was however, within spitting distance of it. I was scared out of my random shopping wits and told the shop assistant that Big Brother was watching me. That very bewitched moment. She chuckled and said that it was quite normal to get the text messages. From who, I asked? How did they know my number, I asked? How in heaven’s name did they know where I was, I stammered? She had no idea. I dialed the given number, paid the amount demanded and skedaddled out of the shopping center.

Outside my vehicle, I found a fairly portly gentleman wearing a brightly illuminated waistcoat branded Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). Turns out that he was the one who had generated the text message on his hand held device as KRA is assisting the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, who are managing the county that houses our glorious capital city, to collect parking revenues. What would happen if I didn’t respond to the text, I asked the tax collector. “Ahh Madam, si unajua lazima mtu atumie system za KRA,” he happily chirped back his response, reminding me that it was impossible to be an adult citizen in this country and not have to pass through the KRA tax collection system. In short, if I chose not to pay, he’d have shrugged his indifferent shoulders and the system would have automatically and very virtually “clamped” my car. The car would show up as having an outstanding parking payment due and this would accrue interest daily to an eye popping amount – I know this because the tax collector’s eyes popped out really large as he animatedly explained the consequences – and I would have to pay this at the point where I interacted with the system, whether it be for filing my annual returns, paying for an importation of a car, paying monthly rental income, yada yada yada. Folks, tax avoiders have been caught a good one!

The amazing part for me was that KRA had simply integrated its parking collection system to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) system which has details of all vehicle owners. So key in a vehicle registration number and voilá, the telephone number of the registered owner appears and a text message is automatically generated. Why did the message refer to Ngong Road, I asked the guy thereafter? Well, apparently their revenue system had turned the city into zones, so the shopping center where I was happened to be in that zone.

I recalled this experience as I perused my old articles and found one that I had written in September 2010 questioning the (in)efficiency of what was still the Nairobi City Council. Referring to the parking attendants, I said efficiency “…Would require removing all the yellow coated ticketing attendants from the streets and placing automated and efficient parking ticket meters on streets to reduce the bloated headcount.” Eleven years later we are there, albeit in an even more efficient manner as revenue collection is automated and linked to a floating guillotine over the driver’s neck in the name of KRA.

So the latest proposal coming from Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) to reduce traffic in the city by levying a Kes 100/- per hour parking charge is one that will bring premium tears to city drivers. It will be a great revenue generator yes, but as the late American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was famous for saying, it is the unknown unknowns that should give us sleepless nights. Such a steep rate change will change inadvertently change already erratic Nairobi driver behaviour. How, is the million dollar question. But be warned, don’t ignore the text messages when they come. And if you’ve sold your vehicle to someone else, you want to make sure that their ownership is well registered, otherwise your virtual penalty account over at KRA will grow as large as your ignorant bliss.

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka