E-Citizen directive: Ruto warns 34 CEOs for failing to comply

President William Ruto has directed 34 government entities to fully integrate their services with the e-Citizen platform within a week.

Ruto was speaking at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) on November 28, 2024, during the first anniversary of the e-Citizen directorate since the platform's relaunch.

“There are government agencies that are still dodgy and I want to put them on notice,” he said.

Ruto placed the CEOs of the government entities on notice warning that their jobs would be on the line for failure to comply with his one-week directive.

“These entities have yet to comply with my directive that the services, payments and revenues must be on the e-citizen platform so that the treasury can follow up on the revenues being collected by the government," Ruto said.

"They have one week to comply. Otherwise, they know what to do, they can make use of the door.” 

 Ruto criticized the agencies that bypassed the e-Citizen platform and instead used alternative payment methods that undermined accountability.

“We still have government agencies that are yet to come to the e-citizen platform but once in a while, they retreat to go and pay or use alternative means of payment including games with some banks," Ruto said.

"I want a record of the last three months of government agencies that are already on the e-citizen platforms but have decided to use alternative means with grey spaces so that we can take action against the people who are undermining transparency in the collection of public resources." 

Ruto stated that he would enforce his promise of enhancing operations in government that are transparent and credible. 

"When I campaigned, I made a fundamental statement, I said in my administration there would be no money to steal and part of that journey is through digitisation. Through this, we connect service delivery to revenue collection," he asserted. 

According to President Ruto, the government services platform e-Citizen currently offers at least 22,515 services.

Ruto said the platform currently serves a community of over 13 million users in the country.

According to the President, the number is expected to continue growing.

“E-citizen currently hosts 22,515 services of a thriving community of 13 million users,” the President said.

He noted that revenue collection through the platform has grown and this has helped his administration provide resources for state projects.