Say bye to cash: State to go digital for payment of services
All payments for government services shall be made through eCitizen, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u has announced.
Following the introduction of the government’s Digital Payments Programme, payments for services will be done through the official paybill number 222222.
“The government has developed the eCitizen.go.ke Digital Payments Platform through which citizens and all other persons will be able to pay for government services,” Prof Ndung’u said in a Gazette notice.
This payments platform, he noted, is integrated with all the electronic payment platforms in Kenya, including mobile money.
The paybill will have the official short code number 222 while the USSD number will be 2222. The national identity card will be the unique identifier for citizens while foreigners will use their alien identity card. For companies, institutions and organisations, their unique identifier will be their official registration number.
“All payments for government services shall progressively be made through the platform,” Prof Ndung’u said.
This comes weeks after President William Ruto promised to digitise and make all government services available online. He noted that making government services available online would ease and enhance service delivery, even as he promised that 5,000.
“To ensure that Kenyans are getting better government services, we will ensure that 5,000 government services are accessible online in a period of six months. This will help solve the issue of Kenyans making very long queues to be served,” said the President.
The Head of State said that currently, only 300 government services are available online.
“We want to ensure that you can get every service online without having to travel to any office,” the President said.
Reiterating the president’s position, ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo on December 28 said that once the programme was rolled out long queues witnessed in government offices across the country will be a thing of the past. He was speaking during the launch of free WiFi at Ahero market in Kisumu.
“The government is keen to discourage people from travelling long distances to seek services, and the first step is to equip the entire country with internet services, which will be used as an anchor to offer government services,” said Mr Owalo. BY DAILY NATION
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