Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna’s Linda Mwananchi civic movement uses M-PESA paybill 3033049. The paybill is registered under “E Sifuna” because Linda Mwananchi has not been registered as a political party under Kenya’s Political Parties Act. Account reference is your own Safaricom phone number. This page documents the paybill, its verification, and the money it has raised.
The Equitable Party is not this paybill
On 4 October 2026 Edwin Sifuna launched a political party, The Equitable Party, and was declared its leader and presidential candidate for 2027. That party is a separate thing from the Linda Mwananchi Movement, and it has published no paybill, till or account number. paybillke lists none for it.
Paybill 3033049, the number on this page, belongs to the Linda Mwananchi Movement and is registered under E Sifuna. It is a real, verified number, which is exactly what makes the confusion expensive: money sent to it arrives somewhere legitimate, just not at the party. If you mean to give to The Equitable Party, wait until the party itself publishes a number, and treat anything forwarded to you before then as unverified however convincing the source. Read the name on the M-PESA confirmation before you confirm, and again afterwards.
Paybill 3033049: how it works
Sifuna unveiled the paybill on 21 July 2026 and explained the naming decision publicly: since Linda Mwananchi is a civic mobilisation platform rather than a registered party, the paybill uses his own official name (“E Sifuna”) as the registered business. Kenyan M-PESA paybills for unregistered entities must attach to a legal person or a registered business.
- Paybill: 3033049
- Registered as: E Sifuna (Edwin Sifuna, Nairobi Senator, ODM)
- Account reference: Your own Safaricom phone number (07xx xxx xxx)
- Suggested donation: KES 10 per contributor (per Sifuna’s own ask); larger contributions accepted
- Reflection: Instant M-PESA confirmation; fundraising totals updated periodically on the movement’s X account
- Verified: 9 September 2026, against lindamwananchi.com/donate and @LindaMwananchi_ on X
How to donate: step by step
- Open the M-PESA menu (Safaricom SIM Toolkit) or Safaricom app
- Select Lipa na M-PESA
- Select Pay Bill
- Business number: 3033049
- Account number: your own Safaricom phone number (e.g. 0722123456)
- Amount: any (Sifuna’s ask is KES 10; larger amounts accepted)
- Enter your M-PESA PIN
- Confirm: you’ll receive an M-PESA confirmation SMS as your receipt
Fundraising totals publicly disclosed by Sifuna
Sifuna has committed to publicly account for all funds raised. Rolling totals disclosed to date:
- First 12 hours (22 July 2026): KES 519,144 raised from 9,419 contributors. Average contribution KES 55, range KES 1 to KES 5,000. Reported by People Daily.
- First 36 hours (23 July 2026): KES 2,210,836.82 raised. Reported by The Star and Breaking Kenya News.
- Later disclosure (per Sifuna, People Daily): Over KES 6.5 million total raised through paybill 3033049.
The pattern, high contributor count, very small average donation, is consistent with Sifuna’s stated grassroots-funding strategy of reducing reliance on wealthy financiers.
The July 2026 Safaricom shutdown and restoration
In late July 2026, Safaricom briefly deactivated paybill 3033049. Sifuna publicly alleged the deactivation followed “orders from above”: a reference to political pressure on Safaricom. The paybill was restored within days, and Linda Mwananchi confirmed the restoration on its official X account (“we are so back”). As of 9 September 2026 the paybill is active and accepting donations.
This history is worth noting because a paybill that has been deactivated once could theoretically be deactivated again. If you attempt to pay and see “invalid business number” from Safaricom, cross-check the paybill against lindamwananchi.com/donate and @LindaMwananchi_ before assuming it is permanently gone.
Scam warning: lookalike paybills
Tax treatment of Linda Mwananchi donations
Donations to Linda Mwananchi are not tax-deductible under Kenyan Income Tax Act rules. Only donations to registered charitable organisations that hold a KRA-issued tax-exemption certificate qualify for deduction from taxable income. Linda Mwananchi is a civic-mobilisation platform, not a registered charity.
You do not need to declare a Linda Mwananchi donation on your KRA return. The donation is made from post-tax income and does not create any KRA-side reporting obligation for you as a donor.
How this compares to actual political-party paybills
For context, verified paybills for donating to registered Kenyan political parties (as of September 2026):
- ODM: paybill 985900, account = your phone number
- Linda Mwananchi (unregistered civic movement): paybill 3033049, account = your phone number
- DCP: paybill 247247, fixed account 254829 (this is Equity Bank’s paybill routed to DCP)
- Maraga 2027 campaign: processes M-PESA through MookPay rather than a direct paybill
- UDA: membership only via *509# and members.uda.ke; no public donation paybill
- Jubilee: no public donation paybill disclosed
The full comparison, with scam warnings and KRA notes, is at Donate to Kenyan political parties 2027.
Editorial note
paybillke is a payments directory, not a political outlet. We have no editorial position on Sifuna, Linda Mwananchi, ODM, or the 2027 political cycle. This page exists because Kenyans searching for “Sifuna paybill” or “Linda Mwananchi paybill” deserve verified information: the alternative is that they get scammed by lookalike paybills exploiting the movement’s visibility, which is a payments-integrity problem in our beat.
All figures in this piece come from primary sources: Sifuna’s own public disclosures on X and to the press, Linda Mwananchi’s official donations page, and reporting by The Star, People Daily, and Kenya Times. Every claim is linked. If any figure changes, we update this page and note the date at the top.
Sources
- Linda Mwananchi official donations page: lindamwananchi.com/donate
- Linda Mwananchi official X: @LindaMwananchi_
- People Daily (21 July 2026): Sifuna unveils paybill
- People Daily (22 July 2026): Fundraiser tops KES 519k
- The Star (23 July 2026): Paybill raises KES 2.2M in 36 hours
- Kenya Times: Sifuna on Safaricom shutting down the paybill