Mr Francis Mwaura (right), a senior assistant director at the Directorate of E-Government, with Telkom CEO Mickael Ghossein at a past function. Photo/File
What you need to know:
The move is part of the government’s efforts to seal loopholes through which revenue is lost.
The government has contracted Samsung SDS of Korea to put up the infrastructure that is required for the digital signatures.
The interface is expected to be ready by October.
Taxpayers will be required to have online identities called digital certificates to file returns and apply for Personal Identification Numbers from the Kenya Revenue Authority.
The move is part of the government’s efforts to seal loopholes through which revenue is lost by tracking the parties to a transaction and confirming payments.
“As the government moves to automate and digitise its records, e-government will handle a lot of sensitive data, and this calls for security of these records,” Francis Mwaura, a senior assistant director at the Directorate of E-Government, said.
The government has awarded Samsung SDS of Korea a Sh393 million contract to put up the National Identification Number (NID) infrastructure that is required for the digital signatures.
The interface is expected to be ready by October allowing individuals that process transactions with the taxman to start using the signatures in November.
KRA will be the first government agency to test the certificates, which, Mr Mwaura said, the public will pay for. The fee will be announced next month, he said.
The tax agency has been under increasing pressure to collect more every other year and is even facing higher targets as the national budget keeps growing.
Implementation of the new Constitution, which has introduced devolved systems and a bi-cameral Parliament, means the taxman will have to step up monitoring and be more efficient to put cheats on a tighter leash.
Reviewers and critics say the taxman can collect more by putting categories under watch. This financial year, KRA is expected to collect Sh817 billion.
Samsung SDS beat 17 other firms including Symphony, Dimension Data, ZTE and Copy Cat to clinch the tender. The verification system popularly known as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) will see taxpayers issued with the unique ID.
“The online certificate will be a unique Internet ID that will facilitate access to on-line government services and to effect e-commerce (including e-banking services),” said Mr Evans Kahuthu, the Kenya ICT Board information security manager.
Apart from KRA, other immediate beneficiaries would be businesses that rely heavily on e-transactions and handle sensitive information like banks, medical service providers, legal entities and government ministries like Immigration and Lands.
If successful, Kenya would become the second country in Africa to implement the tool after Cameroon. Samsung SDS Vice President, Sungwon Han, said Internet users will increasingly have to trade-off convenience and security.
“As countries make progress in e-government, offline activities are being changed into online ones like e-commerce, e-banking, e-procurement and e-bidding. Securing the platforms is key” said Mr Han at a conference in Nairobi last week.
