Senator Danson Mungatana of Tana River has disregarded lawmakers criticizing the government's decision to combine all service payments into a single PayBill number on eCitizen, the online gateway for all State services.
President William Ruto issued an order last year directing the government to pay school fees using eCitizen; however, the High Court has since blocked the directive.
Kenyans must pay a convenience fee and service charges on top of the fixed fees when requesting State services on the portal, which has also drawn criticism.
On Thursday, however, Mungatana urged other lawmakers who were critical of the system—which he calls a game-changer—to offer improvements rather than just whining.
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"eCitizen might have its issues; I know Senator Stewart Madzayo has moved to court to question the charging of an extra amount when making payments. It might not be perfect," Mungatana said in a panel discussion on Citizen TV's Daybreak program.
"But my colleagues (legislators criticising eCitizen) have the public accounts and investment. Nothing stops them from getting out of the lamentations committee and going into solutions. I am also interested in perfecting this system because it will be a game changer."
Madzayo has filed a lawsuit to prevent convenience fees from being collected by Pesaflow, the private business that handles eCitizen payments.
In his petition, the Kilifi senator describes the convenience fee as an unfair and unconstitutional burden on taxpayers, claiming that Pesaflow's ownership and role are unknown.
Mungatana maintained that the unified Paybill number system was the best way to stop government money from leaking, saying the government had been saving millions of shillings daily since it was implemented.
"There were agencies before eCitizen that collected revenue and would deposit something like Ksh.5 million or Ksh.3 million every day, then the president introduced one PayBill number and there was resistance. The procurement people were told to obey or resign," the senator said.
"Suddenly, someone paying Ksh.5 million was paying Ksh.25 million… daily collections increased. There was a time when people laughed at former President Uhuru Kenyatta when he said we are losing about Ksh.2 billion every day, but when you think about it, the leakages are massive."
Pressed further on the increased collections, the MP declined to divulge further details, only saying, "It is internal information."
