At least 17 CEOs of various state agencies have been summoned over failure to comply with a presidential directive on payments of services through eCitizen.
Among those summoned include heads of Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Kenya National Examination Council and National Hospital Insurance Fund.
Others are the Higher Education Loans Board, the Hustler Fund and the Agricultural Finance Corporation.
Secretary to the Cabinet Mercy Wanjau said the 17 are expected to appear next week before the e-Citizen Implementation Committee.
Wanjau chairs the committee.
Heads of Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Kenya Ports Authority, National Cereals and Produce Board, National Aids Control Council, the Mathari Referral and Teaching Hospital, Kenya Railways Corporation, Kenya Ferry Services Limited, Kenya National Trading Corporation and the Kenya School of Government are also set to appear.
Addressing officials from various state agencies in Syokimau, Machakos Tuesday, Wanjau said the summons followed a comply-or-explain letter that she had issued on August 4 this year.
Wanjau who is the convener of the meeting said principal secretaries for State Departments under which the agencies fall and board chairpersons will be in attendance.
“Following conversations that have happened, these state corporations have been invited for a meeting on Tuesday at 9 am and this meeting is to be attended by the CEO, the Chair of the board and the PS who is the accounting officer,” she said.
The summons was issued a day after Immigration and Citizen Services PS Julis Bitok warned that executives risk losing their jobs for failing to declare all revenues collected on the eCitizen platform.
Bitok said an analysis of potential revenue from the over 11,000 services on eCitizen against declared amounts pointed to the diversion of collected money.
Preliminary investigations, he noted, indicated that funds paid in cash were being banked in accounts that were not linked to eCitizen.
“Let it not be you who will find yourself not being able to comply and you have to explain and sometimes you may even have to lose your job because you’re not able to do what is supposed to be done," he said.
Wanjau noted that although the agencies had initially been granted a temporary exemption from closing their pay bills and channelling all payments to 222222 on account of their unique services, they were still bound by the December 31 deadline.
“The exemption was on the premise that indeed you need time but you still must remain on the pathway for digitisation without fracturing your services,” she stated.
President William Ruto unveiled, on June 30, the government services on eCitizen directing all state agencies to migrate their services online and to use 222222 as the official paybill by the end of the year.
Ruto ordered that over 1,000 Paybill numbers used for the collection of payments for government services be shut down within 90 days.
e-Citizen is a platform that allows Kenyans to access government services such as the renewal of driving licenses, application of passports and business registration services.
He said the government could not account for some of the paybill numbers used by various government agencies.
"There is a dedicated government pay channel, 222222. The government expects that all government revenue must now use the pay channel so that Treasury can have sight of every government service that is paid for," he said.
He said this way, the Treasury will ensure money meant for a particular ministry goes to the respective ministry or agency and ensure the whole eco-system works.
Wanjau accused some of the agencies of frustrating revenue collection and transparency that were intended by the directive by maintaining separate bank accounts and advertising unofficial payment channels.
“If you want to use 222222 but meanwhile encourage payments to alternative platforms, what are you saying?” she posed.
Immigration and Citizen Services PS Julis Bitok under whose docket e-Citizen falls said the government intended to seal all loopholes on revenue collected to hit the target of Sh1.5 trillion annual collection.
“With technology, we will seal loopholes, enhance service delivery and raise revenue collection to hit our targets,” he said.
The PS for Performance and Delivery Management Veronica Nduva urged public officers to take the directive on e-Citizen services seriously as it was a means of assessing individual and organization performance.
Broadcasting and Telecommunications PS Edward Kisiangani challenged MDAs to deploy simplified communication on the availability of services on eCitizen.
The meeting was also addressed by Devolution PS Terry Mbaika and her Tourism counterpart John Ololtuaa.