The Kenya Kwanza government has taken over the management of the e-Citizen service portal, which a private company previously managed.
The announcement was made by ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo, who stated that the takeover is in line with President William Ruto’s directive to digitize over 5000 government services within the next six months.
“We have just taken over the e-citizen platform and want to upgrade the infrastructure. By next week, we will be onboarding additional services from consumption of services by the public. The public’s interest is better protected when that architecture is in the hands of the State, and that is exactly what we have done.” he said in an interview with Citizen TV’s News Night show on Tuesday.
According to the CS, the government is in the process of involving all stakeholders in the digitization process, beginning with those in charge of infrastructure planning and then the budgetary allocators to servicing providers.
Referring to the president’s recent pledge to lay 100,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable across the country, the CS stated that the plan was to lay the groundwork for the project’s long-term success.
“We are first going to ensure we have got adequate ICT infrastructure all over the country by rolling out 100,000 km of fibre optic cable. We will then have the initial budgetary provision to start rolling out the services. You first digitise government records so that everything is on ICT enabled platform, you then digitise the services by engaging service providers but the platform will be in the hands of the government.” he added.
Citizen digital report that the CS, at the same time, noted that the ultimate results would see less capital-intensive services to the public in that it would create revenue through small taxable fees.
“As we progress, we will then have most of these being finalised through appropriation in aid -where you generate revenues internally through that process there is a mechanism based on the fees you charge, some go to the service providers and some are ploughed back and re-invested into the same system,” Owalo said.
The portal was launched in 2014 by the ICT Authority of Kenya and gives citizens access to essential services without visiting a government office.
