E-citizen; Is this Digitization or a Misdirection

 

                                                        Image on Freepik

In a bid to prioritize the shift to a digital economy and improve the efficiency in service delivery, former President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a directive in 2013 aimed at ensuring that all government services would be digitized. Thus, the eCitizen portal was gazetted under Gazette Notice No. 9290 of 2014. Relying on the information on the National Treasury website, the former President initiated this project in accordance with the recommendations of the Third Medium Term Plan under Vision 2030.

This was not the only catalyst for the establishment of the eCitizen program. The World Bank also made recommendations for the same, and went to the extent of providing approximately Ksh 70 million. This financial capital was sourced from the International Finance Corporation, the main lending unit of the World Bank, which in turn contracted with Webmasters Kenya Limited under the leadership of Mr James Ayugi. In line with this, Webmasters Kenya Limited was, and still is, the brains behind the eCitizen platform.

Over the years since its launch, the eCitizen platform has been developed to become a one-stop shop for Kenyans to conveniently access government services all in one place. However, the stakeholders of this platform have had their fair share of hurdles. In 2017, Goldrock Capital Limited sued the Cabinet Secretary for Treasury, the Attorney General, Webmasters Kenya Limited, Webmasters Africa Limited and Safaricom, after the C.S claimed that Goldrock Capital was operating illegally in managing funds from the eCitizen platform. Hence it gave a directive to Safaricom Limited to deny the plaintiffs in this case access to their Mpesa Paybill 206206, including the convenience fees that were being charged over and above the service fees.

At the same time, Webmasters Kenya was in a tussle with the government of Kenya, claiming ownership of intellectual property rights over eCitizen, as the original developers of the portal. Further down the line in 2018, Senator Okiyah Omtatah filed a suit against the government, claiming that it failed to follow due procedure in procuring services from various contracting companies, as is laid out in the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015.

In line with Section 54(2) of the aforementioned act, Senator Omtatah additionally challenged the Ksh50 fixed fee charged on all transactions made on the eCitizen platform. He stated that this flat fee was a direct contradiction of the Gazette Notice No. 9290 of 2014, which provided for a nominal administrative fee per transaction. This nominal fee was intended to be a percentage of the payment made, not a fixed price to be charged irrespective of the amount paid for a service. He was aggrieved by the fact that charging this fixed fee of Ksh50 together with transaction fees from mobile money platforms and banks, on top of the service fees, set the prices of government services way above market value price. This, he expressly stated, was a direct contradiction of Section 54(2) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015.

In 2019, the Goldrock case and the case by Senator Omtatah were consolidated. However, Justice Mwita Chacha, upon the Senator’s request permitted him to pursue his case separately in the constitutional and human rights division of the High Court. Unfortunately for him, all his advocacy proved futile when the Court dismissed his case after his court files were found to have been tampered with.

In a bid to keep the system up and running, the government contracted with Pesaflow Limited to take over from Goldrock Capital and take charge of the transactions made on the eCitizen platform. This decision was met with immense opposition. Recently in February 2024, another Senator from Kilifi, Senator Stewart Madzayo, rose to the occasion by suing the current Cabinet Secretary for Treasury, Pesafow Limited, Kenya Commercial Bank and Equity Bank. He seems to be concerned about the fact that despite eCitizen being wholly owned by the government, a third party which is a private company, gets to manage millions of shillings everyday paid by Kenyan citizens for government services.

Moreover, Senator Madzayo reiterates that the Ksh50 convenience fee, now termed as an access fee has not yet been gazetted in the first place, and neither has Pesaflow. Indeed, he is appalled by the fact that the government sought to enforce these decisions on Kenyans without seeking their opinions on the same. Senator Madzayo states that the government should do away with the access fee at once, and instead use a part of the service fees paid by citizens to keep the eCitizen platform up and running.

In early February this year, the Head of Public Service Mr. Felix Koskei stated that 250 Ministries, Departments and Agencies are currently plugged into eCitizen, offering approximately 16,000 services. This is a sky-rocketing increase from a mere 397 services as of June 2022. Amongst these services, a few have made the headlines over the past few weeks since they have caused uproars. These include; payment of school fees and other utilities to learning institutions, and the payment of royalties to musicians.

The High Court on application by a Nakuru surgeon Dr. Magare Gikenyi issued interim conservatory orders to halt the implementation of the circular by the P.S for Education, Belio Kipsang. Dr. Magare was opposed to this directive, stating that it was imposed on the citizens without even consulting them. Furthermore, he noted that the payment of school fees via the eCitizen platform would pose a challenge for parents living in rural areas who seldom have access to technology. This directive also rules out the possibility of parents continuing to pay in kind with foodstuffs for example, to facilitate their children’s education.

On the other hand, the national coordinator of the Recording Industry of Kenya (RIKE) Ms. Angela Mwandana, opposed the intention of the Kenya Copyright Board to disburse royalties to musicians via eCitizen. She was concerned that the eCitizen platform lacked the infrastructure that is required, according to globally recognized standards, to distribute these royalties adequately.

The eCitizen platform has indeed faced more challenges than it has seen victories, which makes me wonder, are we as a country really ready to go digital?

Wendy Chumba is an editor at the University of Nairobi Law Journal.