Kenyans shun online services despite increased awareness

• President Kibaki (R) during the opening of an induction workshop for Governors in Naivasha

By Macharia Kamau
Most Kenyans would rather walk to a government office to get copies of official documents as opposed to downloading them online.

This is according to a new report that notes that even with the knowledge of the availability of e-government services and a degree of capacity to access them through the Internet, many still opt to physically go to government offices for these services.

The Julisha Survey by the Kenya ICT Board also notes that Kenyans rarely buy products online, which has affected many businesses that have adopted the Internet as an exclusive platform to sell their products and services in the country. The survey, which is the second to be released over the last two years – notes that e-transactions are almost non-existent.  A similar scenario is seen in the usage of e-government services and those using government services online are indifferent.

This means that most Kenyans would rather spend time and other resources to physically go to a government office seeking a service that is already available online at low cost.  They also prefer to visit an outlet of a utility company to pay their water, electricity and other bills as opposed to a simpler and cost effectively mode of payment on mobile money.

“Online e-transactions are almost not present and include online banking (7 per cent), utility payments (6 per cent) and the purchase of products and services (5 per cent). Four of the top 5 e-transactions are done via mobile,” said the survey released yesterday.

Poor understanding
“Overall awareness of e-government services is significant (53 per cent) but actual usage of the same is low (23 per cent) with use experiences at neutral. A variety of services still need to be availed on line with the registration of ID cards leading the pack followed closely by on-line registration of universities.”

Kenya ICT Board commissioned the International Data Corporation (IDC) to undertake the survey that also notes that the cost of devices and Internet services has been a constraint to ICT adoption to new users and increased usage from current users.

“Overall the Kenyan ICT market continues to thrive and we expect that from 2013 onwards, the most notable issues will include; the new government structure as county governments wean themselves from national governments to become more autonomous, increased investment by vendors, increased venture capital activity aimed at start-ups and developments with the 4G shared network infrastructure,” said Dr Bitange Ndemo, Information and Communications Permanent Secretary.

“There is need to address the challenge of limited and expensive financing for projects and importation of goods. Inconsistent importation regulations, tariffs and other levies are frequently cited as irregular and are as a result of either poor understanding of different ICT goods or poor definitions of the different classes of ICT products.”

ICT businesses that responded to the survey noted the nature of government contracting was that entailed long procurement cycles and cyclic spending by government were huge problems to doing business with the government. Other challenges cited by businesses included lack of industry ready skills and in most instances the businesses have to invest in training new staff.

 Kenyans use the Internet to mostly search for information. According to the survey, the main purposes for using the internet are the search for information (75 per cent), communication with colleagues (64 per cent) and downloading (59 per cent) exceeding by far other reasons.