Government commissions online platform to aid payment for services

The government has launched the implementation of the national electronic payment gateway implementation.

With the increasing usage of technology to access services, the citizens are often inconvenienced when making payments for the services.

This is manifested in the non-seamless mode of payment the citizens are subjected to.

It is against that background, that the Accountant General, in partnership with NITA-Uganda, is set to implement a payment gateway that will enable online payments for all government services.

The commissioner, Financial Management Systems, in the ministry of Finance, Aiden Rujumba called upon the entities to embrace this new platform.

"As a government, we are always looking for technologies that will allow for more transparency and efficiency so as to make the lives of citizens easier in their interaction with government especially with access to government services," Rujumba said.

Steven Kirenga, the Marketing & Communications manager, NITA–U, informed the meeting that the national payment gateway will ensure payment for government services securely, fast and conveniently.

"Citizens will soon be able to pay for various Government services online, easily on their phones either through the citizens portal, the mobile phone application or USSD," he said.

Some of the anticipated benefits once the service is available include; seamless payment for government services in the sense that a citizen will no longer switch between websites of ministries and URA when paying for Non-Tax Revenue e.g. Passport fees; simplified process for making payments for government services and reduced transaction costs due to the ability of aggregating payments for different services offered by the same ministry/entity.