A Parliamentary Committee has directed the National Treasury to address payment limitations on the eCitizen platform, ensuring that Kenyans in the diaspora can smoothly use debit and credit cards for service payments.
Last week, the National Assembly’s Committee on Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations, chaired by Nelson Koech (Belgut), convened to review a report on the Committee’s participation in the Mobile Consular Service Exercise in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.
The Committee’s mandate includes overseeing the State Department on Diaspora Affairs, specifically the Mobile Consular Services (MCS) program. This program aims to cater to the needs of Kenyans in the Diaspora by providing services such as Identity card (ID) application and replacement, passport application, renewal and replacement, Birth certificate application and replacement, Certificate of Good Conduct application, and Marriage Certificate application.
In the report, the Committee has instructed the State Department for Diaspora Affairs to guarantee the prompt completion of budgeting and funding for Mobile Consular Service (MCS) activities before execution. This is aimed at mitigating facilitation challenges faced during service delivery.
The report states, “The National Registration Bureau needs to expedite live fingerprint capture for Identity Card applications to accelerate data capture, enhance accuracy, and reduce rejections.”
Committee Members also stressed the importance of the eCitizen platform providing prompt and responsive 24-hour customer support to enhance the user experience.
The Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations Committee is expected to present the report in the coming days.
