The plan to unify the utility billing system in Ethiopia has been postponed by three months due to absence of physical structures.

The unified billing system planned to allow residents of Addis Ababa to pay bills for water, electricity and telephone at a single payment window as per the plans proposed by The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

The contract to undertake the project had been awarded to NCR and AT&T affiliated local IT Company Global Computing Solutions last June.

GCS was expected to set up the system in January of 2012 in physical buildings to be provided by the government but the schedule was postponed due to challenges encountered with the relatively new concept of a public-private partnership and the delay in making the building available according to Mesay Hailemariam, UBS Project Manager with the Ministry.

The Ministry encountered challenges with finding structures that meet the specific requirements and was forced to make an official extension of the period allocated for building the system he said.

There are 27 buildings secure so far by the Ministry and cooperation from the Government Housing Agency, the Ethiopian Postal Service Enterprise and Youth Recreation Centers is expected explained Messay.

GCS is renovating the buildings that have been secured so far employing a team of architects and interior designers said Myriam Said, Director of Programs and Service Delivery with the IT Company.

Source: Addis Fortune