Ministry of Information and Communication PS Bitange Ndemo said the State had set aside Sh670 million to kickstart the project. Private sector players who have expressed interest in being part of the initiative include Kenya Data Networks, Popote Wireless, Telkom Kenya, Celtel and Safaricom.
Dr Ndemo said a key objective of the initiative is not only to create employment but also to transfer some of the jobs from the urban to the rural areas.
“We don’t want a situation where IT firms will go to the districts to perform tasks that locals can actually do,” the PS said.
Under this project the Government plans to create digital villages to be located in the rural centres to offer e-mail, e-banking, e-government, e-business. e-learning e-health and other IT supported services. A typical digital centre will have computers connected to the internet, digital cameras, printers, fax machine scanners and other IT devices.
Speaking during a meeting on digital centres organised by the Ministry of Information and Communication, three permanent secretaries drawn from Ministry of Youth affairs, Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Information and Communication said there is need to modernise the now considered informal sector by using ICT so as to help absorb the large pool of graduates in the country and those coming out of the collages and secondary schools.
The PS in the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Kinuthia Murogo, said the number of graduates from colleges and secondary schools still far much outstrip the numbers being employed annual which calls for other innovative ways of creating job opportunities.
“Currently the employment rates stand at around 500,000 annually however the number of those being churned out of schools and collages stands at 700,000 per annum so we still have to find ways of taking care of the balance that we have” said Mr Murogo.
He noted that ICT provides the best way that could be used to create employment even in the far and remote areas. “ With ICT some of these jobs can be done in remote areas that don’t have industries and even the jobs don’t necessarily have to depend on our local economies” he said.
As a way to facilitate these, the PS said his ministry will allocate funds for those youth entrepreneurs who wish to invest in Digital Villages and Centres.
The ministry of information will from August start training one thousand applicants who applied for the government sponsored training for managers who be in charge of the digital villages and centres across the country. It is after the training that they can now apply for the funds to get started.
Ministry of Trade PS, David Nalo, said there was need to mordenise the informal sector and one way of doing this is by using the ICT as a tool of doing business. He said the informal sector was creating a suitable environment that could make use of IT for entrepreneurship.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Okuttah Mark
Quelle/Source: Business Daily Africa, 31.07.2007
