E-citizenship platform gives Kenyans access to 14,000 government services

Kenyans can now access up to 14,000 services on the government's e-citizenship platform. The government revealed yesterday that it has been able to collect more than Sh200 million in revenue from digital services since the beginning of the year.

Julius Bitok, principal secretary at the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services, said the government is committed to facilitating access to services.

state government agency

“We are able to map many services, and there are over 14,000 services, including the Department of State's Immigration Services and Citizen Services. ” he said.

He spoke during a meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary Mercy Wanjau with principal secretaries, chief executives and board chairs of 17 state agencies.

President William Ruto, in a gazette notification dated November 30, 2023, directed all state agencies to incorporate government services into a single digital payment platform in Pay Bill 222222, which is expected to come into force by the end of this year. .

Mr. Bitok noted that the government is keen to address the challenges and compliance issues of state government agencies that are not digitally integrated to provide services on e-citizenship platforms. “There are quite a few services that we initially exempted. We exempted them because of their complexity, but we gave them time to integrate the system,” he said.

Mr Bitok listed the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and Kenya Power as some of the exempted state agencies.

Mr Wanjau said digitization of services would help fight corruption, especially in the revenue collection system.

“Ultimately, we will be able to achieve increased revenue and transparency from this (e-citizenship) platform,” Wanjau said.

She exuded confidence that she would be able to ensure that all state agencies comply with the President's directives within the stipulated deadline.

“We are fully committed to meeting this deadline, after which we will begin working on improving the customer experience to satisfy our customers,” she said.

This is happening despite the government tightening loopholes against revenue loss for government services.