Kifiya to Work for EBC in Fee Collection

The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) has hired Kifiya Financial Technology Plc to collect license fees for television owners.

Kifya, a subsidiary company of Global Computing Solutions Plc (GCS), is a company that runs a Unified Billing System, called Lehulu, through which people have been settling their telephone, electric and water bills for the past three years. It will also begin collecting traffic fines per the agreement it signed with the Addis Ababa Road & Transport Bureau.

Previously, traffic penalty payments were made through sub-city’s transport office or post office. But after the completion of the database and network building, vehicle drivers can soon pay the traffic penalty going to any nearby Lehulu office.

GCS is a United States based company that has two decades of experience in the ICT sector in Ethiopia.

Kifya is finalising preparations to start serving television customers. This includes the customisation of its application and the transfer of a database from EBC, said Netsanet Raya, Kifiya’s chief operational officer.

Senayit Haile, EBC’s promotion and market study director confirmed the deal and that the service could begin in coming few weeks, but declined to talk further on the subject.

EBC, formerly known as Ethiopian Television & Radio Agency (ERTA), had been collecting television license fees from 10 collection centres it had in 10 districts in Addis Abeba. Currently, EBC has no overall organised and completed database of registered paying customers, or clear enforcement, which made the collections difficult and ineffective, stated a license fee collector at EBC’s main office.

Kifiya has 34 centers called Lehulu, translated as ‘for all’. The UBS has been giving service to 1.1 million bill paying customers and processing 2.1 million transactions each month.

There is an interest in integrating more services, such as pre-paid electricity payment to unified billing system, said Natsanet.


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