- President William Ruto’s administration collects about KSh 700 million daily from eCitizen after integrating one pay bill number
- PS State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services Julius Bitok revealed that the state targets KSh 1 billion daily collections by December 2024.
President William Ruto’s administration targets over Ksh 1 billion in daily revenue collections from eCitizen. This followed the successful implementation of the single pay bill number 222222 for M-Gava payment services.
How many people use eCitizen? Speaking during the Network of Africa Data Protection Associations (NADPA) conference in Nairobi on Wednesday, May 8, Immigration and Citizen Services PS Julius Bitok said the target will be to increase subscribers to the platform to 30 million.
Bitok explained that this can be achieved by ensuring all eligible Kenyans obtain an ID, which is required to register an eCitizen account. “On average, we are enrolling about 20,000–30,000 people every day. We are at 13 million, and we are looking at the entire population of Kenya,, which is 32 million adults. We are halfway and within one to two years, we should have everyone with a digital ID,” said Bitok.
How much is collected on eCitizen per day? According to Bitok, the state currently collects over KSh 700 million from 13 million users. The government onboarded over 16,000 ministries, state departments and agencies (MDAs), and county government services. A source privy to the eCitizen operations intimated to http://frimor.co.ke that 16,458 government services were fully boarded by 607 MDAs as of April 23, 2024.
There were 18,736 or 95% of services onboarded to the eCitizen platform during the same period.
In terms of revenue collected, the source revealed that KSh 60.2 million was collected at 3.38pm on the same day. Over $11.7 million (KSh 1.5 billion, based on the current exchange rate) was collected during the same period. “The money collected goes straight to the National Treasury and takes 48 hours processing be processed by the respective MDA or entity. This system guarantees payment efficiency and transparency,” said the source at eCitizen. Data shared showed that the government collected over KSh 1.58 billion in April 2024 from over 219,000 users.
What are the most sought-after services on eCitizen?
The amount collected in US dollars amounted to $28.5 million (KSh 3.7 billion), with the main payment gateways being mobile money (58%), KCB (35%) and Equity (7%).
The top services on the platform include:
- Alien card applications at over 700,000 per day, collecting over KSh 43.79 billion
- Application for passports, which hit 3.1 million, collecting over KSh 15.95 billion
- Transfer of ownership services at over 2.8 million, collecting over KSh 7.54 billion, among other services whose all-time collection amounted to KSh 127.5 billion.
How is government increasing eCitizen users?
PS Bitok confirmed that the government is banking on the new digital Identity card, also known as the Maisha Card and its supporting ecosystem to provide a registration regime that is more secure from forgery and identity theft. “There are four components in this digital ID ecosystem. Maisha Number, given to newborns which will run across their lives, in primary school, secondary, university, NSSF and NHIF and will appear in one’s death certificate,” he said. He said periodic data impact assessments, data safety audits and compulsory MoUs with third-party data handlers are being undertaken to protect the large of volumes of data involved in eCitizen operations.
