The government has taken control of eCitizen finally extinguishing a fight for control of billions of shillings that the platform collects which was ending up in the accounts of private companies.
eCitizen, an online portal through which the government provides essential services such as applications for passports, driving licences, business registration certificates, vehicle logbooks and title deeds was created by the Jubilee government in 2014.
The platform has however been at the centre of a legal battle between two companies and the state over who should manage the money it collects.
Last night ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo said the Kenya Kwanza government has reverted system back to the state.
“We have just taken over the e-citizen platform and want to upgrade the infrastructure and by next week we will be onboarding additional services on that platform from consumption of services by the public,” he said in an interview with Citizen TV’s News Night show on Tuesday.
“The public’s interest is better protected when that architecture is in the hands of the State, and that is exactly what we have done,” said the CS.
The CS also explained that the government is in the process of engaging all the stakeholders in the digitisation process starting with those in charge of laying out the infrastructure, and the budgetary allocators up to the service providers.
The plan according to the CS is to move all government services on line as announced by President William Ruto last month.
The President said this move will also ensure ease of doing business as citizens will be able to access their licenses online.
“We have about 15 per cent of government services in the digital platform, and we want to ensure that between six and 12 months we will have moved 90 per cent of goverment services to the digital platform,” he stated.