Kenyan e-visa billions wired to Swiss accounts

Billions of shillings collected by the government from the e-visa system introduced last year by President William Ruto’s administration were first wired into a Swiss bank account, the Star has established.

The details emerged following a fallout between the government and the firm — Travizory Border Security SA, Switzerland — that was awarded the lucrative contract for what is officially known as Electronic Travel Authorization Services (eTA).

The State Department for Immigration introduced the eTA system to advance security screening of travellers before they arrive in the country.

The move was also part of President Ruto’s efforts to make Kenya visa-free, especially for Africa.

However, it has emerged that in the contract with Travizory, the government allowed the eTA fees being levied to be wired directly into Swiss accounts controlled by the vendor.

From August 2024 when the contract was signed to February 25 this year, Travizory had collected $50,568,810 (about Sh6.5 billion) on behalf of the Kenyan government. From this amount, the firm would pocket Sh1.5 billion.

The revenue is from 1,596,799 eTAs that had successfully been applied for.

It however remains unclear how the government would monitor the number of transactions and the amounts paid for the services with no control of the bank accounts.

With the fallout, the Swiss firm says they will withhold $8,342,712 (about Sh1.07 billion) that is still pending in their accounts.

Travizory intends to sue the government for what they say is infringement of their intellectual property rights and unprocedurally terminating their engagements.

After seven months of billions being paid directly into foreign accounts, the government has now engineered what it calls “a local solution”.

The new system is hosted on the e-Citizen platform with Pesaflow as the new payment processor. But there is a problem. 

Travizory says the government has simply replicated its system by redirecting visitors to a new platform.

“They [Swiss firm] have written a demand letter threatening to move to the London Court of International Arbitration or the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes,” a highly placed source within government told the Star.

From the Sh6.5 billion collected, the firm was paid Sh1.5 billion. This is approximately 23 per cent of the value of total revenue generated.

Appearing before Parliament last week, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen disclosed that the Swiss firm was being paid per transaction.

For instance, for the standard eTA application that costs $30, the vendor was charging $9.5 while for the United States multiple eTA, which costs $160, the service provider was paid $16.

For East Africa, a tourist eTA application costs $100 of which $9.5 goes to the service providers.

In Parliament, Murkomen who was appointed Interior CS months after the controversial contract was signed, termed it a “pilot project”.

“This was a pilot project as the State Department explored ways of localisation of the eTA solution. On March 9, 2025, eCitizen eTA solution was rolled out,” Murkomen said, responding to questions raised by Bumula MP Wanami Wamboka.

Travizory however insist they made significant investments into the system with anticipation that they would recoup their investments through long-term engagements with the government of Kenya.

Wamboka had wanted to know how much money the government spent to acquire and implement the system.

He also wanted to know a certified list of technical service providers responsible for the system operations, and whether the platform is hosted and managed within the country.

The government has in recent days come under sharp scrutiny over its implementation of technology contracts.

There has been outcry over the ambitious Sh104.8 billion Social Health Authority after the Auditor General revealed that despite massive public investment, the state neither owns nor controls the system.

Like the eTA system, SHA is also bankrolled for every contribution by members and from every claim that hospitals make.

According to the latest audit report, the consortium behind the system collects 2.5 per cent from every contribution by members, five per cent from claims by health facilities, and 1.5 per cent for track and trace solutions.

Last year, the Auditor General said the state has little or no control of the e-Citizen platform, warning that this could raise accountability challenges with billions collected through the system.

In December last year, the government disclosed that e-Citizen collected Sh900 million daily. With more services being on-boarded into the system, the collections are set to explode.

Murkomen said the country has witnessed a significant boost in the tourism sector as a result of the eTA system.

“According to the Kenya Tourism Board annual report 2024, Kenya’s tourism sector reported record growth, with 2.4 million international visitors, a 15 per cent increase from 2023 and inbound tourism earnings rising by 19.79 per cent to Sh452.2 billion,” Murkomen told Parliament.

“This is an independent and objective appraisal of the positive impact of eTA on the tourism sector among other factors that influenced the rise in numbers of tourists and corresponding increases in business earnings.”