ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo revealed plans to use the Huduma Namba idea, which flopped under former President Uhuru Kenyatta's administration, for a new government project.
Speaking to the press on Tuesday, January 10, Owalo explained that Ruto's government was keen to explore the same idea in rolling out its newly launched digitisation programme.
Defending his sentiments, Owalo insisted that the digitisation programme was key to centralising all government services and reducing the struggle of producing National Identification (ID) cards to access services.
"The intention of Huduma Namba was good because it was trying to ensure that we have a digital identity that could facilitate virtual transactions between the government and the public as far as the provision of services is concerned," Owalo stated during an interview on Citizen TV.
He added: "It is the same thing we are going to do as we roll out this government digitisation process because it is still imperative that we don’t need as Kenyans to go to government offices flashing identity cards."
To avoid suffering a similar fate as Huduma Namba, Owalo maintained that Ruto's administration had laid out procedures to make the digitisation programme align with various countries' laws.
To fast-track the project, ICT Cabinet Secretary revealed that the government had taken over the e-Citizen platform that a private company previously ran.
Owalo announced that Ruto's administration was keen to digitise over 5,000 government services within the next six months.
"We have just taken over the e-Citizen platform and want to upgrade the infrastructure and by next week we will be onboarding additional services on that platform from consumption of services by the public," Owalo stated.
"The public’s interest is better protected when that architecture is in the hands of the State, and that is exactly what we have done," he insisted.
Besides producing cards similar to Huduma Cards, the former Raila Odinga's strategists maintained that the new digital programme would embrace online services and tools.
He added that the new idea would also enable the government to collect revenue from the project.
"As we progress, we will then have most of these being finalised through appropriation in aid -where you generate revenues internally through that process there is a mechanism based on the fees you charge, some go to the service providers and some are ploughed back and re-invested into the same system," Owalo reiterated.
Explaining why the Huduma Namba project failed, Owalo stated that the former regime failed to carry out proper public sensitisation.
"The pitfall that befell Huduma Namba is that there was no adequate sensitisation at the beginning. And if you remember, it was being launched at a time when there was also a crowded political atmosphere. So there were suspicions about it," Owalo revealed
The Huduma Namba project conceived by Uhuru's administration failed to materialise following court battles that declared it unconstitutional.
