Government loses another round in battle over Sh50 e-Citizen charge
The Nakuru Law courts
President William Ruto’s administration has lost yet another round of battle over the Sh 50 charged for the using the e-citizens platform after the Court of Appeal declined to suspend the high court order that declared the fee unconstitutional.
The appellate court judges in their ruling dismissed the application by the Education, National Treasury and Information and Communication Technology Cabinet secretaries seeking to stay the execution of the judgment issued by the High Court pending an appeal it had filed.
The high court in Nairobi had on April 1, outlawed the Sh 50, fee charged on citizens using services from the e-Citizen platform as convenience fee.
The judge had ruled that the government does not engage in business with its citizens but provides services at minimal cost, which should cover the chosen mode of payment.
“the government cannot compel citizens to use a specific payment platform and at the same time require them to fund its maintenance through an extra fee,” read part of the judgement.
The court declared that the Sh 50 convenience fee was an illegal charge and ordered that it should not be levied on the citizens.
Aggrieved by the decision the government moved to appeal the judgement and also sought to have execution of the judgement orders suspended pending hearing and determination of an appeal they had filed.
The government in its application for stay argued that the e-Citizen platform is designed to be self-sustaining and operates without budgetary support from the exchequer, thus relying entirely on the convenience fee to meet recurrent costs such as hosting, system maintenance, SMS support and connectivity.
“The prohibition of the convenience fee will deprive the platform of its operational funding, leading to the disruption of over 15,000 government services accessed by approximately 120,000 users daily,” read the court documents.
However, the petitioners led by Nakuru based Surgeon Dr Benjamin Magare persuaded the court to dismiss the application arguing that the government is a perpetual entity and can finance its projects through lawful means such as reallocation or supplementary budgets.
The court of appeal judges in their ruling noted that the applicants had failed to demonstrate that the intended appeal would be rendered useless if the High Court judgement is not stayed.
“In so stating, we note that the convenience fee declared unconstitutional is purely monetary and as such, any financial implications arising from its suspension are capable of being remedied should the appeal succeed,’’ read part of the judgement.