'No money lost on eCitizen': Gov't dismisses Auditor Genaral's report

The government now says no money was lost on the eCitizen platform, explaining that accounting systems after the contractual agreements with the system vendors sealed all the loopholes for corruption in the platform.

Speaking when he appeared before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, Treasury Principal Secretary Dr. Chris Kiptoo said the government fully owns the platform and has all the access passwords.

PS Kiptoo said Auditor General Nancy Gathungu's findings were nothing but an inaccurate distortion of facts, maintaining that no money was lost in the system.

The PS, in a joint rejoinder with his counterparts Dr. Belio Kipsang (Immigration and Citizen Services) and Eng. John Tanui (ICT), dismissed the Auditor General’s findings that reported a loss of about Ksh.11 billion from the government’s digital payment platform, at least since 2023.

“I want to assure Kenyans that from 2023 onwards, I want to assure Kenyans no money has been lost,” PS Kiptoo stated.

Kiptoo added that the government had put enough legal and fiscal measures to prevent loss of public funds through the system.

“For many years, almost 10 years, there was no contractual obligations between the vendor and the government, so we have tried to regularise the law,” he noted.

The PS however admitted to a failure by relevant authorities to implement the prorated service charge, which has not been in place, instead employing a flat rate charge of Ksh.50 convenience fee, which led to an overcollection of Ksh.1.8 billion from the taxpayers.

“The passwords and administrative rights for eCitizen are managed by the Directorate of Citizen Services under the Ministry of Interior,” said Kiptoo.