IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Principal Secretary Joseph Tiampati said the ambitious e-government project will connect 28 counties through a high capacity network providing voice, data and video capability to connected government offices in a secure manner.

The announcement comes two days after the government signed a Sh1.2 billion loan with the Belgian government to finance the project.

If things pan out as planned, mobile penetration will increase from the current 75.8% to 90% in 2018 while wireless broadband will grow to 10% within the next five years from the current 2.4%.

The government is in the process of developing a national land use policy to regulate the planning and use of land for sustainable development, Land Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi has said.

Prof Kaimenyi observed that sound land governance is fundamental in achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday commissioned two key projects at the Konza Technopolis, signaling the Government’s commitment to the completion of the country’s first smart city.

The President, who was on an inspection tour of infrastructure projects implemented by the Government and partners at the technopolis, inaugurated an eight-storey headquarters of Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KoTDA).

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is counting on cutting-edge technology to prepare a new and more accurate voter’s roll.

With memories of the botched disputed 2007 election still fresh, IEBC is approaching the voter registration knowing full well that a botched voter registration process could have negative consequences for the credibility of the coming election.

Falling under the directorate of e-Government services, it comes when manual records are being upgraded into electronic forms, rasing the possibility of increased cyber crimes.

It will take charge of electronic security on government systems, including the telecoms infrastructure and data storage, migrating from an arrangement where individual ministries and departments were in charge of cyber policing.

The government is keen to take Internet to rural Kenya to allow it offer services such as registration of births and deaths, passport issuance and tax collection under the e-Government plan.

While the government objective is to boost internet penetration and electronic commerce, private players who have been aggressive in laying similar cables reckon that the multibillion shilling plan will hurt their investments.

The association's CEO Peter Ndoro yesterday said they plan to integrate ICT and ensure they add value on learning.He said that under the Education Device Acquisition Programme, the association will partner with Microsoft Corporation, Intel East Africa, Safaricom Ltd, Mitsumi Computer Garage and Equity Bank to buy the laptops.

Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru said the exercise would help determine the actual number of public servants.

"This will also be used to cleanse the payroll at both levels of government, hence bring a stop to the issue of ghost workers," said Waiguru in a statement.

President uhuru Kenyatta will launch the exercise Nairobi even as the Kenya Civil Servants Secretary General Tom Odege warned the government against victimizing innocent workers who were hired competitively in the rationalization programme.

In a programme launched on Wednesday by the National Council for Law Reporting -- Kenya Law Reports (KLR) and all parliament proceedings in the Hansard will be relayed to www.kenyalaw.org

In the programme KLR has partnered with Kenya National Assembly, Kenya Information Communication (ICT) Board and Google search engine to digitise more than 1,750 editions of parliamentary debates from 50 years ago.

“We kill too many trees. I’ve been to countless meetings now where I cringe at the amount of paper in front of me. We have iPads, we should start using them, but we have to create the platform in the background that provides things digitally and in a format that we can easily got through the information. There is no need to be printing tons and tons of paper anymore,” said Mr. Suckoo.

Speaking in Nairobi yesterday, Planning Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti said the Capacity Assessment and Rationalisation of the Public Service (Carps) will be followed by restructuring, which will see workers redeployed to areas that match their skills and experience. The registration is expected to be completed in October.

What you need to know:

• Smart cities are urban settings planned technologically to improve quality of life and services, enhance security, and collect up-to-date data.
• For urban centres to function efficiently in the coming years, experts urge that they be designed to withstand climate shocks.

Climate change and the increasing urban populations are creating new demand for smart cities with capacity to provide efficient services while using resources sustainably.

"Our belief in ICT is of the magnitude that has never been seen anywhere in the world, an idea whose time has come, and when it has come, not even a mighty army can stand on it's way," said Ruto. The government is spending KSh. 53 billion in providing laptops to class 1 students, a move that has been met with strong opposition by some Kenyans while seeing others supporting the move.

Safaricom and Nairobi City County have signed a partnership to digitise the county’s services and operations.

Under the partnership, Safaricom will support the country in digitizing services to citizens and help in revenue collection with the target set at Sh18 billion annually.

Further, the telco will develop and support the “My Nairobi App” which will support citizen engagement with the county through a platform dubbed “Bonga na Sakaja”.

Speaking at the State Law offices, Attorney General Githu Muigai said the move will make E-Government a reality as Kenyans will easily access government services.

"As the country embraces a devolved system of government, and seeks to offer services through digital platforms, we are glad to be partnering with Safaricom Business for this proposition,"Githu said.

The first centre, aptly named “@iLabAfrica”, is a Centre of Excellence in ICT Innovation and Development that was officially launched this week. It was established to address the Millennium Development Goals and to contribute toward Kenya’s Vision 2030. It is an independent entity in the Faculty of Information Technology at Strathmore University.

The ongoing damaging impact of the pandemic combined with a growing number of climate-related emergencies is bringing into stark relief government’s ability to provide essential public services to vulnerable communities.

I recently visited the province of my birth, KwaZulu-Natal following the devastating floods. The desperation of the people and scale of the disaster has seen tens of thousands of displaced citizens turning to government to provide a broad range of relief measures, while damage to critical infrastructure including water supplies has prompted the President to declare a national state of disaster.

Kenya’s push to actualise a smart city at the Konza Technopolis has gained momentum with the roll-out of four new projects.

The projects, under its second phase, are an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and Integrated Control Centre, the establishment of a Startup Ecosystem, the development of Smart Logistics in Konza and the development of the Konza-Nairobi Corridor Transport Network.