• The reports in media don't state the state agencies that lost money or who did the audit that found the cash missing.
• Webmasters was contracted to set up the eCitizen platform and collect revenue on behalf of the government in 2013 and the Treasury later disowned the firm.
Image: COURTESY
The IT firm behind the eCtizen payment platform says no cash been lost in the platform.
Webmasters Managing Director James Ayugi told the Star on Friday that all the cash collected using the platform is swept to the Central Bank.
"Even the refunds that are due to be made for various service that people have paid for twice are to be made by the government. We do not handle any cash," Ayugi said.
Webmasters was contracted to set up the eCitizen platform and collect revenue on behalf of the government in 2013 and the Treasury later disowned the firm.
While they initially started with 10 services on a trial basis after receiving some cash from the World Bank, the firm has now increased government services to more than 100.
The eCitizen is a digital platform on which the government has been providing essential services including applications for business registration certificates, title deeds, driving license, passports, police clearance certificates and motor vehicles logbooks.
However, Webmasters MD James Ayugi said the reports claiming that Sh5.6 billion had disappeared were not true.
Ayugi said no single government department has complained of loss of revenue because the e-Citizen is just an enabler for different departments in government.
He said all the state agencies have accountants who do reconciliations and no single complaint of loss of revenue through the platform has been lodged.
The firm has collected Sh40 billion for the state which has been wired to the Treasury since the inception of the programme in 2014.
Ayugi said no one is holding the cash anywhere as it moves from paybill to the government account at the Central Bank.
Image: COURTESY
He says the money is moved directly from paybill to CBK and there is no other exit through which government revenue can be channelled and there are controls at different stages.
According to Webmasters, officers within different departments including Treasury are able to verify each and every payment because they have their own verification dashboard on reporting daily revenue.
“No one has tampered with the system because different departments do their own audits every day for example when you apply for a passport they ask you to take a receipt and are able to trace that payment to CBK and this happens every day,” Ayugi said.
He added that there is no way anyone can tamper with anything and get money out saying no single entity has complained of loss of revenue lose even a single cent.
The system is tamperproof and foolproof and up to now there is no single incident where that process has been tamper with or loss of government revenue and on our part we only support technology. The platform-mounted by Webmasters started at the Treasury then was moved to the office of the president has been collecting revenue for three - Mombasa Kisumu and Nyeri.