Kenyans seeking marriage certificates can now apply for the document on the government's e-Citizen portal, the Directorate of Immigration Services has announced.
Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Prof. Julius Bitok said on Friday that marriage certificates can be conveniently obtained after registering mutual consent on phone or other electronic gadgets.
The PS noted that a total of 5,318 services are now available on e-Citizen as the government targets a tenfold rise in annual revenue from the digital platform.
According to Bitok, the government targets to double the number of services by June this year.
“One of the examples of services that have gone digital is marriages. If you want to get married, you can now apply for marriage certificate from the comforts of your phone where you apply online, go for interviews and get your marriage certificate online,” Bitok said.
He was speaking in Nakuru when he closed a workshop on the digitalisation of services by national and county government ministries and agencies and onboarding them to the e-Citizen platform.
The 3-week meeting was also attended by digital services platforms providers and telecommunication firms led by Safaricom.
PS Bitok said besides convenience, the e-Citizen platform will also provide comparatively cheaper services by cutting out travel and time spent on physical visits to government offices.
“One of the key benefits of digitization is that it reduces the cost of services to citizens by the government. For example, instead of taking a matatu from point A to point B and paying 200 to go and the same amount to come back to get services, you can now access the services from the convenience of
your phone," he said.
"Besides the personal benefits to citizens using the services, the government is also hoping the digitization drive will increase the around Ksh80 million daily eCitizen revenue collection by more than ten times to hit Ksh1 billion daily.
“The other advantage is that this will increase the revenue by reducing leakages. With around 300 services, we are currently raising around Ksh80M daily. Now with 5,000 services, we are now going to increase this by more than tenfold to around Ksh1B daily.”
President William Ruto had directed the directorate of e-Citizens under the State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services to ensure more than 5,000 services were digitalised to ease access to government services.
