Murky ownership, irregular payments
The special audit further revealed murky ownership of the eCitizen platform.
Although the World Bank handed over the system to the National Treasuryin 2017, a second handover curiously executed in January 2023 between Webmasters Kenya Ltd and the Ministry of ICT — effectively returned control to the vendor without legal or technical justification.
This unusual arrangement has left the government over-reliant on a private company for the day-to-day running of a critical national revenue system.
The audit revealed unauthorized transactions involving funds meant for government use:
- Four payments totaling Sh127.85 million were transferred directly from the official M-Pesa Paybill 222222 to private entities without documentation or justification.
- An undisclosed account named “Pesaflow” linked to Equity Bank received Sh68.7 million and Sh6.2 million. This account was not authorized by the National Treasury, raising concerns over potential diversion of funds.
“This account [was] not listed among the approved collection accounts by the National Treasury. The total amount irregularly collected could not [be] established as bank statements were not provided for audit,” the report stated.
Irregular vendor payments
The government also made irregular payments amounting to Sh492 million and Sh545 million to a company not party to the support and maintenance contract for eCitizen.
Of this, the audit faulted the outsourcing of Sh142 million paid for services.
“This exposes the government to legal disputes and potential loss of funds,” the report warned.
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