Time is money –Benjamin Franklin

Long queues are very common on deadline due dates as most rush to beat deadlines that they could have easily avoided.

Service halls tend to be practically empty before due dates thus one gets quick services, but when the due date finally comes, mass jam service halls, queuing for hours, while complaining, as usual, of how slow the services are. Such incidents can easily be avoided if people made their payments early.

Land Rates

A classic example can be cited from the City Council of Nairobi (CCN) land rates 40 days waiver period.  As it is the norm, the 40 days waiver period wasn’t quite taken advantage of by most Kenyans. About KES 400 million had been collected at the end of the waiver period as opposed to the targeted KES 10 billion.

Queues were extremely long on 8 August 2012, the due date of the 40 days waiver period, with most pleading for an extension. The City Council of Nairobi was reasonable enough to extend the waiver period for an additional 10 days though this still wasn't long enough for most to settle their land rates. At the end of the extended waiver period, Nairobi residents still pleaded for an extension.

Property owners on mortgage claimed that they were unaware that they needed to pay rates while others requested for more time to clean their books with the council. CCN has again extended the waiver period for a further seven days bringing the deadline to 30 August 2012.

School Fees and Bills

University of Nairobi self-sponsored students have the first month of every semester to settle their semesters’ fees or risk being locked out from registering for their classes. As it is the norm, most students fail to pay their fees early enough and in the long are forced to queue for hours to cash in their fees when the deadline finally comes.

Incidents of people paying their electricity or water bills on the day their meters’ are due for disconnection are very common. Those under the postpaid electricity meter system wait untill they have very few units before they make their next purchase. Many have frequently found themselves disconnected simply because Kenya Power systems were down when they urgently needed the tokens.

Time is money

In as much as people will have different reasons for failing to pay up early enough, the benefits of paying early outweigh the risk of paying late. Back to the CCN extended waiver period, chances are some might still fail to meet the 30 August 2012 deadline. As usual they will plead for an extension which this time might not be granted, resulting in them falling victim to what CCN has termed as the biggest repossession exercise in the East Africa region.