eCitizen founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Webmasters Kenya Ltd, James Ayugi affirmed that the directive given by the Ministry of Education was to register each bank account of every school.
He acknowledged that there are ghost schools and ghost students and there was a need for accountability when it came to payment of fees.
James mentioned that each school has a bank account registered with the Ministry of Education and each student has a student number.
He said that when fees are paid, the platform can ascertain that a particular student has paid their fees.
“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 eCitizen founder stated that at the end of the day, there will be a settlement to the school bank account from the platform 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.
In an interview with Spice FM, James clarified that this was just a means to track what the school was collecting.
He cited instances where schools come up with additional costs that parents are forced to pay.
“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 manually, it can be very difficult to keep track of the payment record.
“The main reason you have eCitizen 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 eCitizen, the Treasury can ascertain how much money goes to school accounts.
“With eCitizen, 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 eCitizen has sparked a nationwide conversation with politicians and stakeholders giving their views on the matter.
The High Court in Nairobi had extended orders blocking the implementation of the government directive for parents to pay school fees through the eCitizen platform.
In the ruling, Justice Chacha Mwita stated that the order would not prejudice the government.
