Ethiopia to Implement Unified Billing System

Thursday, 13 December 2012 |Ethiopia is to implement a unified billing system for water, telephone, and electricity as of the coming January.  The new unified billing system is to be automated. The system was designed by Global Communication Solutions, an Ethiopian IT company, and NCR and AT&T, its partners from US. The project was undertaken by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology  in an agreement signed with the companies. The implementation of the project starts from the coming month and aims at modernizing the bill collection system of Ethiopia.  The three governments offices that collect bills separately, the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation , Ethio-Telecom,  and Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority have completed the installation and testing of the new system.It was noted that the plan to implement a unified billing system was intended to take effect last year but delayed due to several problems.The project has been delayed mainly due to problems of the lack of a proper standard building that houses the new system in the country. But now the company has linked 25 billing stations in the capital city through networking to undertake the bill collection without a need for a modern building. The new system is said to help residents of Addis Ababa settle their bills in a single payment at the various UBS stations around town.Source: Capital