People living in rural Rwanda represent more than 83 percent of the total population. Unfortunately; this vast majority has always been ignored by service providers, due to the poor purchasing power. Hence access to various services and latest technologies has been a critical challenge. Responding to the above challenge Rwanda Telecentre Network (RTN) has entered into partnership with mobicash to promote financial inclusion, facilitate payment of e-government services as well as collection of non-fiscal revenues. This will allow RTN Telecentres to make a big step towards becoming “one stop shop” for citizens services.
The partnership agreement between the two firms, which was signed at the MobiCash offices in Gishushu, Kigali today will see all RTN members facilitate payment of e-government services, collect non-fiscal revenues on behalf of Rwanda Revenue Authority among other services offered on the Mobicash platform, and have them securely deposit the fees collected, especially from the identified sectors that do not have bank branches.
Paul Barera the Executive Director of RTN said the partnership will enhance one of RTN program which is to “narrow the delivery gap for government to citizens(G2C) and Business to Citizens(B2C) services while promoting entrepreneurship and job creation in ICT sector”. Specifically, partnership with Mobicash will allow RTN members to help in non-fiscal revenues collection but most importantly to facilitate citizens to make payment for Irembo services using mobicash platform and hence increase revenue for RTN members. Currently, RTN has around 500 ICT access points with 300 facilitating access to Irembo services. The goal is to have at last 1,000 ICT access points acting as one stop shop for e-government and private services.
Speaking after the signing, Pascal Nyagahene, the Chief Executive Officer of MobiCash Rwanda said the partnership is a major milestone for Mobicash’s outreach program as they aim to bring convenience for people to make their non- fiscal payments especially at this time of the year when land fees are being collected, which will also lead to increased collections for RRA.