James Ayugi, e-Citizen founder and executive Officer (CEO) of Webmasters Kenya Ltd, has affirmed that it is safe to pay school fees through the e-Citizen platform as per the directive made by the Ministry of Education.
Ayugi said that the platform can ascertain when a student pays their fees as each school has a bank account registered with the Ministry of Education.
“When you are paying fees, the school has access to the payment information in real-time and they can know that you have paid fees because it is from system to system,” he said.
The founder said that a settlement to the school bank account from the platform will be done once payment is made as it is an automated process.
“The government will tell the school that we have received this money, and at the end of the day, there is a settlement to the school bank account, and this is an automated process,” he added.
James during an interview with Spice Fm, said that this directive was made as a means to track what the schools were collecting and to minimize the pressure put on parents where they are supposed to pay additional costs put on them by schools.
“There are situations where they are coming up with their fees. So, there are many other costs that parents suffer every single day. With digitization, this will be a thing of the past.”
He stated that when dealing with so many schools, it can be very difficult to keep track of the payment record manually.
“The main reason you have e-Citizen is it acts like a central bureau. Information comes in, gets recorded, and is released. So, the Treasury only has visibility of the amount collected by the school. So, when they are disbursing capitation they know the actual number of students in the ecosystem, making it easier to avoid fraud and corruption,” he added
He further explained that when school fees are sent through e-Citizen, the Treasury can ascertain how much money goes to school accounts.
“With e-Citizen, it is like a super till where you have a central pay bill and a till number for each and every school. There is a central admin, National treasury that knows how many tills are in each school, so you know how much money is going to each school,” he concluded.
The directive by the Ministry of Education for payment of school fees through e-Citizen has sparked a nationwide conversation with politicians and stakeholders giving their views on the matter.
In separate interview, Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana has dismissed legislators criticising the government’s move to consolidate payment of all its services on eCitizen, the online portal for all State services, into one PayBill number.
The order, given by Danson Mungatana last year, has seen the government order that school fee payment be made on e-Citizen, although the directive has since been blocked by the High Court.
Mungatana challenged fellow legislators criticizing the system, which he describes as a game changer, to present solutions that would make it better instead of complaining.