Fees Paid Via ECitizen Automatically Be Transferred To Schools
Fees Paid Via ECitizen Automatically Be Transferred To Schools
Fees Paid Via ECitizen Automatically Be Transferred To Schools
James Ayugi, the CEO of Webmasters Kenya Ltd. and the originator of eCitizen, said that the Ministry of Education had ordered all schools to register their bank accounts.He agreed that there are phantom students and ghost schools, and that there should be accountability for fee payments.James explained that every kid has a student number and that every school has a bank account that is linked to the Ministry of Education.
According to him, the platform can verify that a specific student has paid their fees when they are received.”Because it is from system to system, when you pay fees, the school can know that you have paid fees because they have access to the payment information in real-time,” he explained.
Since eCitizen is an automated procedure, the founder announced that at the conclusion of the day, a settlement will be made from the platform to the school’s bank account.
“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.
“eCitizen functions similarly to a super till, with a till number assigned to each school and a central pay bill.” The National Treasury, a central administration, is aware of the number of tills at every school, so you can determine the amount of funding allocated to each one, he said. The Ministry of Education’s regulation requiring school fees to be paid via eCitizen has spurred a national dialogue in which stakeholders and politicians have voiced their opinions. The government’s mandate that parents pay school fees using the eCitizen platform has been blocked by extended orders from the High Court in Nairobi. Justice Chacha Mwita declared in her decision that the decree will not harm the government.
