KRA Issues Payment Alternative as eCitizen Paybill Crashes

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has announced a temporary disruption of the eCitizen Payment Services. 

In a notice on Friday, January 3, KRA also provided alternative payment options following the outage which has been attributed to technical difficulties. 

In the announcement, KRA advised users to utilize bank payment options or Point of Sale (PDQ) machines for their transactions to avoid delays. 

"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with eCitizen Payment Services. To ensure your payments are processed without delay, please use your bank payment options or PDQs.

"Our technical team is actively working to resolve the issue and restore services as soon as possible. Any inconvenience caused to his highly regrettable," the notice read.

For the better part of Friday, the eCitizen platform experienced significant disruptions.

The outage notably affected tourists at Nairobi National Park, who were unable to process entry payments through the mandatory eCitizen system, leading to extended delays and long queues at the park's entrance.

At the time of this publishing, the exact cause of the disruption remains unclear.

This is not the first time eCitizen has had issues.

In October 2024, Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano was forced to intervene after German Ambassador to Kenya Sebastian Groth complained of difficulties in accessing eCitizen services.

In a statement, Groth claimed that he experienced difficulties in paying for the park fees for Watamu Marine Park through eCitizen.

"I really like Watamu Marine Park for a nice snorkeling tour. But getting the ticket via eCitizen is more difficult than seeing the big fish," Groth remarked.

However, in a swift response, Miano told the ambassador that she would ensure the problem was solved, adding that eCitizen is supposed to be efficient.

"Happy Mazingira Day, ambassador. I will take up this to ensure the difficulty is resolved. eCitizen is supposed to be efficient and speedy. Thank you for feedback," Miano stated.