Senators demand action after e-Citizen audit revealed billions lost

Senators have called for action after a special audit on the e-Citizen platform flagged over Sh7 billion in revenue earned without service-level agreements.

Nandi Senator Samson Cherarkey told the House that the audit further revealed unauthorised diversions amounting to Sh127.85 million.

The Office of the Auditor General also referenced the regressive flat rate of Sh50 convenience fee that burdens low-income Kenyans seeking the 22,000 government services.

The audit revealed governance failures, procurement irregularities and revenue risks that threaten service delivery and undermine public confidence.

Key among those concerns are the absence of a legal framework, poor inter-agency coordination and the continued control of co-operations by Webmasters Kenya despite the platform handover to the Government in 2017.

“The system also suffers from data integrity gaps, lacks Standard Operating Procedures and remains exposed to security vulnerabilities, given that a full information technology security audit has not been conducted up to date,” said Cherarkey.

He sought a statement from the Senate Committee on Finance and Budget on steps being taken to establish a comprehensive legal and institutional framework to identify roles, responsibilities and accountability for e-Citizen.

Cherarkey sought to know the measures in place to ensure effective coordination among the National Treasury, the Directorate of e-Citizen and the Information Communication and Technology Authority in managing the platform and the actions to end dependency on Webmasters.

“Kenyans should be told of the plans to review the Sh50 convenience fee and mitigate its impact on the low-income Kenyan citizen and steps to address data integrity, system limitations and security concerns, including undertaking a comprehensive information technology security audit and restoring public trust in the platform,” said Cherarkey.

Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang, while commending the digital platform, said the issues raised should be addressed.

“If the entire digital payment infrastructure for the Government is being held by private players and it does not seem to have clear oversight over it, what if one day some hackers decide to hack it? What if one day the owners of these services become disgruntled and sabotage the entire machinery of the Government?” he said.

“We are saying that this infrastructure is so important to the nation that, if left solely in the hands of private players, it poses a serious national security risk. Countries have taken clear positions on such matters; the US has banned TikTok and Huawei products on grounds of national security and sovereignty.” 

Ledama ole Kina challenged parliament to come up with legislation to improve integrity.

“If you look at countries like Sweden, Estonia and Denmark, they have legal frameworks that assist their governments in collecting revenue. Singapore is also one of them, but here, I can say this because I am speaking out of experience on this matter, legislations are drafted and engineered by the private sector,” said the Narok Senator.

He called for the amendment of the Public Finance Management Act to ensure that the money for all 22,000 government services goes directly to the Consolidated Fund.

“If the ICT Authority is unable to develop technology, why not go to the National Intelligence Service. Two years ago, we were invited by NIS.They showed us their capacity and capability in developing the land registry technology to be used because that would be government-to-government. We should now move away from the issue of collecting Sh50 for 22,000 government services,” said Ledama.

Nominated Senator Catherine Mumma called on the Finance and Budget Committee to give the matter priority.

Mumma said that the manner in which some of the things are happening with the current systems is actually not bringing any confidence among the users and the citizens, stating the audit is good for purposes of exposing any loopholes and any weaknesses in these systems, but even as it exposes these issues, it also brings out some level of lack of confidence.

“You will all remember that recently we had a spat between the national and county governments; county governments not wanting to digitise systems yet, when we were at the Devolution Conference, we all applauded the Governor of Murang’a for digitising most of the services and the systems and particularly the financial system,” said Mumma.

She said this system should be created in such a way that it continues to respect the distinctive nature of our devolved governance, that is able to ensure county governments can operate their financial systems distinctively and independently, as well as in the national government, in order to have better accountability and transparency.