eCitizen developer: I never attended software engineering school, I learned through YouTube
By Mabonga Makhanu, September 16, 2025eCitizen developer James Ayugi has opened up that he has never set foot in a software engineering school but learned coding skills through YouTube.
While appearing during an interview on local TV station on Tuesday, September 16, 2025, he confirmed that he is a self-taught developer since, at that time in 2006, there was not a better teacher for software engineering, and he decided to take the craft upon himself by watching tutorials on youtube until he perfected it to develop one of the biggest Kenyan government website that houses over 22,000 government services
“I am a student of the universe. Back in the days, there were no really good teachers who understood the internet to even train well in software engineering. We are self-taught. Who goes to YouTube to learn web design? You try, you fail, you try again until you get it. Back in 2006, after years of trial and error, we developed it.”
He went further to state that his company, Webmasters, since they are the creators of the website, their function is offering secondary support, which is usually technical, with the government offering primary support
He also stated that the platform that has now eased government services has over 350 people working behind the scenes and offering technical support
He has also revealed that despite the program running for a long time since 2014, it was launched by President William Ruto after assuming office as the president, saying that during the entire period, it was on a pilot programme.
Ecitizen scandal
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu recently released a damning report on the management of funds collected through the government’s eCitizen digital payments platform.
The audit for the financial year 2023 to 2024 shows that out of Ksh100.8 billion collected, at least Ksh44.8 billion could not be accounted for. According to the auditor general, there were major discrepancies between figures recorded in the eCitizen portal, revenue statements and ledger balances. These variances cast doubt on the completeness and accuracy of the receipts.
The report further revealed that the funds were diverted through opaque transactions, unauthorised accounts and poor oversight mechanisms.
The Auditor General also flagged missing funds worth Ksh144 million in ministries and agencies such as the Ministry of Lands, Business Registration Services and the National Transport and Safety Authority.
These losses were linked to duplicate, incomplete and unexplained payments.