The national government through the ICT Authority has an aggressive program to digitise and automate government services.
Some of the known projects include provision of the e-citizen portal
that allows the public to common services, such as application and
payment for driving licenses, passports, business certificates and
marriage certificates.
Whereas
the processes is not yet completely executable online, the citizen
portal does cut down the waiting time required to complete processes by
90 per cent.
Tasks
that would normally require one to walk to government offices several
times over several weeks are now being completed online, with the
citizen simply walking to a government office to collect their final
document.
But
that is credit to the national government. Under our new constitution,
county governments rather than the national government are to manage
most services.
Indeed
health, early childhood education, local roads and what used to be
municipal services are already being managed at the county levels.
In
other words, the benefits of automating government services will not be
fully realised unless county operations are also automated.
Most
Kenyans do not own a car or travel regularly outside the country.
Making it possible to apply for a driving license or a passport online
may excite the minority #KOT (Kenyans on Twitter), but is likely to
leave the majority wondering what was so digital about the Jubilee
administration.
LOOKING 'DIGITAL'
The
typical Kenyan at the county level simply wants a good education for
his kids, decent health services and information that not only improves
agricultural yields, but also increases access to profitable markets.
County
governments are squarely at the centre of providing such services and
can choose to leverage technology in order to make service provision
efficient, cheaper and more convenient for their residents.
Alternatively,
they can choose to ignore technology and make access to public services
as miserable as it has been over the last 50 years of independence.
The
good news is that several counties have opted to embrace technology and
are aggressively implementing various projects geared towards making
public services available online. The bad news is that a few of these
projects seem inspired by the need to look modern rather than to address
citizen concerns.
Provision
of free Wi-Fi Internet services is a good example, with several
counties rushing into such projects and experiencing similar challenges.
They
forget that the it is the county governments that focus on rapidly
automating what the typical Kenyan needs that will be assured of an easy
comeback in the 2017 elections. This means automating services around
health, education and agriculture.
AUTOMATING THEFT
There
is nothing wrong with offering free internet services, despite the
stubborn fact that somebody will still have to pay for it. However, the
social dividend accrued from such an initiative would be much less than
what would arise from automating health, education and agricultural
services.
Another
matter worth remembering is the provision of technical infrastructure,
personnel and security required to sustainably support e-Government
services. Rushing to implement new systems where capacity to support
them is lacking is really the cause of the challenges arising.
The current saga about the IFMIS systemmanaged
by the national government is a worthy lesson for county governments
that are for example rapidly acquiring electronic revenue collection
systems. The lesson is that automation which improves efficiency in
revenue collection could also improve efficiency in its pilferage.
County
governments must therefore aim for a balanced evolution of ICT
development where all interconnected elements such as personnel,
security and others mature at the same rate as that of system
acquisitions.
Either
way, despite the challenges, it is time for county governments to walk
the talk of ICT development. They just need to be cautious and
systematic about how they do it.
Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya's Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu email: jwalubengo@mmu.ac.ke
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