Humor me;
We’re already paying convenience fees. Which is the fee prescribed by
legislation e.g. to reserve a business name pay Kshs. 100. This is already
convenience fees. It is the fee you pay to your government in exchange for
a service. We know who collects it and we know where it goes (or where
it’s supposed to).
So the extra Ksh. 50 is an extra-convenience fee.
*‘In exchange for the convenience of accessing all these services through
one gate, users had to pay a new convenience fee on top of the payments
being made to access the services.’*
Huduma Centre was one gate and all we were required to pay was the
administrative fee prescribed in legislation. Mark you, we are yet to enjoy
the time-saving aspect of these services being undertaken online. Sometimes
it takes just as long as it did at Huduma Center.
*According to sources, the convenience fee was supposed to cater for
overheads associated with operational and support costs during the pilot
period such as hosting on Amazon’s cloud service, subscriptions to SMS
short codes and operations for support staff.*
When all this was done manually, there were overheads too. Curiously, the
prescribed fee was adequate to cater for these overheads. Unless the
argument is, it’s more expensive to have an automated system. And even
then, you would need to go back to the subsidiary legislation and lawfully
increase the fees, with public participation of course.
And we haven’t even addressed the Public Finance Management issues raised
by the additional fees. Who should prescribe it? Under what legislative
authority? Who should collect it, who should be accountable for it?
It does seem that the system was set up to deny hundreds of government
employees the opportunity to collect facilitation fees (bribes) only to
systemically pilfer and benefit from every transaction on that platform.
Whichever way you dress it, this was a sly move.
On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 at 08:59, Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Depends how the convenience fee is used to improve the platform and lives
> of Kenyans. Read on
> www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001266099/unmasking-the-legal-fight-behind-ecitizen-deal-worth-billions
>
> On Jan 15, 2018 6:40 PM, “Admin CampusCiti via kictanet” <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Kanini
>>
>> I’m with you on this. I love this service. And I honestly don’t mind that
>> convenience fee..if only it works.. 🙂
>>
>> UX is basically non existent.
>>
>> *Ali Hussein*
>> *Hussein & Associates*
>> +254 0713 601113
>>
>> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>>
>> Skype: abu-jomo
>>
>> LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>>
>>
>> Blog: www.alyhussein.com
>>
>> “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking
>> what no one else has thought”. ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On 15 Jan 2018, at 6:37 PM, kanini mutemi via kictanet <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> I like eCitizen I do (or rather the concept). But my interactions with
>> the platfrom always leave me with a bitter taste. It returns an error
>> message quite often. Of course customer care is a huge problem. Online
>> support is no better because they always tell you to call Customer Care.
>> It’s also not the most user friendly of platforms so you get stuck quite a
>> lot. Then there’s that controversial ‘convenience fee’ per transaction.
>>
>> On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 at 18:23, Ali Hussein via kictanet <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> James
>>>
>>> You raise a very critical issue about critical government services. I’m
>>> curious. Since Lilian from ICT has responded to Victor maybe she can come
>>> back to us after consulting internally with answers to the following
>>> questions:-
>>>
>>> 1. Where is the eCitizen Portal hosted and what are the SLA details?
>>> 2. Why is it so difficult to get anyone on the Customer Service Line?
>>> 3. There’s no recourse when there is an issue to resolve. In November I
>>> had to pay twice for my driving license renewal. To date I’m not even sure
>>> who to speak with for a refund.
>>> 4. For such a critical service we are past the stage of being ‘happy’
>>> simply to have the service. As citizens we expect NOTHING BUT THE BEST from
>>> Silicon Savannah.
>>> 5. When will the service be fully mobile enabled?
>>>
>>> It’s high time we elevate this service to world class standard. As it is
>>> every time I think about using the service I start getting agitated.
>>>
>>> *Ali Hussein*
>>> *Principal*
>>> *Hussein & Associates*
>>> +254 0713 601113
>>>
>>> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>>>
>>> Skype: abu-jomo
>>>
>>> LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>>>
>>> “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but
>>> a habit.” ~ Aristotle
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On 15 Jan 2018, at 6:07 PM, James Muendo via kictanet <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Listers,
>>>
>>> Barack, I wonder whether those servers are here or out there. And if out
>>> there, two critical questions arise:
>>>
>>> 1. What is the SLA agreement, and especially when it comes to getting
>>> the service back within acceptable timeline(s)?
>>> 2. Why host away from the country, yet we have companies like Node and
>>> Angani, who I believe have the various competencies to handle such locally?
>>> Plus there is KIXP to support the traffic that comes through? I believe a
>>> great number of the users of the system are local. Why not make it easier
>>> and quicker?
>>>
>>> Just wondering.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 5:06 PM, Barrack Otieno via kictanet <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Teacher Karis,
>>>>
>>>> Maybe the servers are in another time zone, give them a few hours they
>>>> will be opened.
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>> On 15 Jan 2018 17:02, “Kelvin Kariuki via kictanet” <
>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I have been trying it since morning, it gives this error:
>>>>> “503 Service UnavailableNo server is available to handle this
>>>>> request.”
>>>>>
>>>>> Its time they commit to a serious Service Level Agreement. Of late the
>>>>> downtime has been frequent, I have been in the process of registering a
>>>>> company and most of the time the service is not available. As a community,
>>>>> we are supposed to speak up about this to save the millions of Kenyans
>>>>> suffering from this inconvenience.
>>>>>
>>>>> The 503 Service Unavailable error is an HTTP status code that means
>>>>> the web site’s server is simply not available right now. *Most of the
>>>>> time, it occurs because the server is too busy or because there’s
>>>>> maintenance being performed on it*… Read on:
>>>>> www.lifewire.com/503-service-unavailable-explained-2622940
>>>>>
>>>>> The error is most likely caused by simultaneous access by millions of
>>>>> Kenyans, the servers they have can’t handle that amount of traffic. They
>>>>> should upgrade their data center. A Service Level Agreement will enforce
>>>>> them to do that and Kenyans will get a convenient service.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 4:42 PM, Victor Kapiyo via kictanet <
>>>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Listers,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyone noticed that the ecitizen portal is down. I’m not sure how
>>>>>> frequently this happens but what’s the acceptable downtime for such a
>>>>>> critical service. Or should we go back to manual backup?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Victor
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
