Don't force parents to pay school fees via e-Citizen

A State official shows how to access a government service through eCitizen. [David Gichuru, Standard]

The government's renewed push to compel parents to pay school fees through the e-Citizen platform is wilful stubbornness that ignores both the courts and the harsh realities of millions of Kenyan families. It should be dropped.

The education sector has already absorbed too much government meddling to now add another layer of bureaucratic interference. From the refusal to hire adequate teachers to match an expanding student population, to the chronic delay and reduction of capitation funds, to the preposterous decision to merge junior secondary school capitation with primary school allocations, the government's record in education is a catalogue of missteps. Trying to force fee payment through e-Citizen is the latest addition to that list.

Not every Kenyan parent owns a smartphone or lives near a cyber café. Officials at Huduma Centres in towns like Maralal have noted that government online services frequently experience outages and delays, leaving clients in limbo.

Network coverage in rural Kenya remains unreliable. Expecting every parent in the country to transact digitally is, simply, preposterous. Beyond connectivity, some parents in rural communities do not pay fees in cash. Stakeholders have warned that e-Citizen poses the danger of frustrating parents who pay school fees in kind, through labour, firewood, food, and other negotiated terms that allow their children to continue learning. How does a parent who supplies a school with firewood or maize input do so on e-Citizen?

The courts have been equally unsparing. Justice Chacha Mwita declared the Ministry of Education's directive on payment of school fees via the e-Citizen platform irrational, capricious, unconstitutional, null and void. The judge ruled that the government's failure to consult parents, school heads, and other stakeholders before implementing such a critical policy breached the Constitution, which prescribes public participation.

The Court of Appeal subsequently declined to suspend that judgment, meaning the government cannot compel payment of school fees through e-Citizen, and the Sh50 convenience fee remains illegal. The claim that e-Citizen is a model of efficiency is not supported by evidence. SHA, whose payments run through the same platform, remains a byword for dysfunction. Even Kenyatta National Hospital has admitted that its transition to the digital payment system caused delays in patient discharges and billing.

On one occasion, at least 22,000 government services were unavailable after the e-Citizen payment platform crashed. Of more concern are the questions of who actually benefits from this arrangement. Private firms that operate the e-Citizen platform pocketed Sh1.45 billion in the financial year ending June 2024. 

An Auditor-General's report showed that despite a purported transfer of ownership by Webmasters Kenya in January 2023, the government did not obtain full control of the system. No parent has complained about the current fee payment arrangements. The government should fix what is broken, not what is working.