President Uhuru Kenyatta has said the quest by his administration to digitize most government services has enhanced service delivery and reduced cases of bribery in public sector.
Speaking during the marking of Madaraka Day celebration at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi County, President Kenyatta said Huduma Centre launched in 2013 together with eCitizen which went online a year later has made access to public services a fast and pleasant experience
Among services that the Jubilee administration has taken online include among others Passport Applications, Birth Certificates, Marriages, Business Registration and Driver’s License.
Launched as part of Vision 2030 Medium Term Plan 2013-2017 Huduma Kenya Programme has seen the rollout of Huduma Centres across the 47 counties in Kenya.
“My Administration has also supported similar advances in the independent arms of government; resulting in a situation where Kenyans now file and serve documents for their Court Cases online, with the era of the notorious ‘missing court file’ being firmly put behind us. It is in the life of this Administration, that a business can be registered online, and certificate issued on the same day, together with the KRA PIN and other statutory registrations,’ said President Kenyatta.
He also highlighted the digitization of Lands Registry which he says has eliminated corruption at the Ministry of Lands.
According to the President, the ministry which was riddled with corruption saw the grabbing of part of Wilson Airport runway whose title deed had been registered under private entity.
Digitization of the registry has also helped in eliminating fake title deeds and has reduced the time to process a single land transaction from six months to 48 hours on Ardhi Sasa, while land search has reduced from three months to just three minutes.
“With the mandate you gave me, we have set a high bar for how and where government services should be provided. Never again will Kenyans accept that they must contend with long winding queues, pay the infamous and notorious ‘facilitation fee’ to receive their rights, or travel long distances to the nearest major town to receive even the most basic of public services,” he stated.
Additionally, the administration oversaw the migration of TV terrestrial signal from digital to analogue after push and pull with the private media owners in June 2015.
As a result of freed spectrum which also allowed for adoption of 4G network, Kenya now has 130 TV stations compared to 14 in 2013, as the number of radio stations increased from 130 to 204.
According to the President, this milestone has expanded opportunities in the digital communication, created jobs and helped various organization curve a niche market.
Since the landing of the first undersea cable, the East African Marine System in 2009, Kenya has go ahead to have five more submarine cables bringing the total to six.
This has pushed internet penetration from 74.9% in 2013 to 131% as the second quarter ended December 2022.
“Over the same time, mobile money transfers increased from Ksh 1.9 Trillion to Ksh 6.8 Trillion. Online jobs have secured close to a million jobs for Kenyans while our innovators continue to make waves globally from their locations here in Kenya,” said President Kenyatta.
