Ruto Order Strands Tourists
Hundreds of visitors to the Nairobi National Park were dissatisfied when the eCitizen platform temporarily failed, preventing them from paying their entrance fees.
Saturday, the travelers vented their frustrations on social media after the payment system became clogged due to the high volume of transactions conducted via the system.
As a result, several park visitors were required to wait in lengthy lines for several hours before being granted access.
Technical difficulties were ascribed to President William Ruto’s order for all government agencies to integrate their services with the Citizen platform.
After reserving entry via eCitizen, visitors must pay using 222222, the government’s only authorized pay bill. After Ruto authorized state agencies to consolidate all other extant pay bills, the pay bill was maintained.
“Please rectify the registration procedure for the eCitizen platform. This is Nairobi National Park on Saturday morning, and the majority of visitors are expatriates,” Friends of Nairobi National Park wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
According to reports, some park visitors were forced to wait for more than six hours, with some departing out of frustration.
“As is customary on most Saturdays, people arrived at the Nairobi National Park at 6 a.m. to capture a glimpse of the animals before the sun became too hot.
Polycarp Hinga, a social media influencer and strategist, lamented, “Unfortunately, some genius somewhere decided that all tens of thousands of GoK services, including KWS park entrance fees, must be paid for through a single pay bill number.”
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The Park visitors also urged the administration of President William Ruto, particularly the Ministries of ICT and Tourism, to work on modalities that will expedite and improve the system.
“It is now midday, and many local and foreign tourists have decided to return home out of frustration. It suffices to state that things are not going well. Government of trial and numerous errors, according to Hinga.
As a result, PoliticalPulseChat reached out to Paul Jinaro, director of communications for the Kenya Wildlife Service, who acknowledged the current issue but stated that the service would be restored.
“What we’ve been experiencing since adopting the new payment system on e-Citizen can be described as teething problems resulting from a technological transition,” Jinaro explained.
The communication strategist explained that due to the nature of the new payment system, technical issues were to be anticipated. Kenya Wildlife Service is still monitoring the changes and will shortly provide an update.
A few days ago, when Kenya Wildlife Service reverted to the eCitizen payment system for the first time, he observed that the delays were more severe.
“We can also report significant improvements as an increasing number of visitors continue to utilize the system to pay for park services,” Jinaro explained.
Ruto Order Strands Tourists