Mastercard and Bank of Kigali announced that they were in a partnership with RwandaOnline, providing a payment gateway to Irembo – the Rwandan e-Government tool.
The announcement of the existing partnership was made at the technology company’s Innovation Forum in Budapest, Hungary.
Read more: RW: Mastercard, Bank of Kigali and RwandaOnline in effort to advance e-Commerce
In October 2013, the Rwandan government announced it had started to cover the lush green, rolling hills of the capital with wireless hotspots.
Kigali became the first city in East Africa to launch free wireless Internet in specific areas of the capital last week under the “Smart Kigali” initiative, joining the ranks of “digital cities” such as Toronto, Houston, Buenos Aires, Bangkok and Taipei.
Gasabo residents can afford to smile after their district became the first to issue a directive that all digitized government services shall be offered online.
The new development will see the valuable time spent acquiring documents such as land titles, birth and marriage certificates from the district offices, drastically reduced.
The mission of Local Government is to "promote the well-being of the population through good governance, community development and social welfare"; among its objectives, the Ministry is tasked with putting in place democratic, decentralized administrative structures, which are able to mobilize the population in order to implement Government programs and resolve problems.
The Government of Rwanda took the initiative to digitize and transform services to citizens. Through the Irembo platform (available on mobile, *909#, and online, www.irembo.gov.rw) Rwandans can apply for governments services, pay and wait for the service from the local government office - they can go to the sector to collect the requested document, after having received a message acknowledging that the document is ready, without going back and forth between different services.
Rwandans and businesses can now easily access government services with fewer struggles thanks to information and communications technology; this is according to Alline Kabbatende, chief operating officer of RwandaOnline Platform Limited.
Kabbatende said this was poised to help the east African country’s move towards a cashless economy and improve how people use government services.
“RwandaOnline has developed an e-government portal for Rwandan citizens and business to access government services,” added Kabbatende.
Read more: Rwanda bringing government services to you online