Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communication, and the Digital Economy, Eliud Owalo on Monday, March 6, revealed that Kenya is seeking a facility to the tune of Ksh77 billion for the Digital Superhighway project.
CS Owalo made the announcement when he met representatives of development partners in Nairobi.
"Kenya is looking at a facility of Ksh77 billion towards the Kenya Digital Superhighway project,” read part of the statement.
“The funds will go towards building infrastructure, developing digital skills, and providing digital services, in line with the recent resolution of the Cabinet,” the CS explained.
Owalo made the revelation after talks with Isabel Neto, Eastern Africa’s Digital Development Sector Director in the World Bank Group Director and Dr. Tim Kelly, lead ICT Policy Expert for Digital Development. The agenda of the high-level talks was the Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Programme (KDEAP).
This was a follow-up meeting after he met with the World Bank Vice President in charge of Infrastructure, Guangzhe Chem, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, last week.
The CS added that, “KDEAP is a component of Africa’s program with the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Moonshot agenda for the continent’s digital economy by 2030.”
Since taking over power, President William Ruto has maintained that Kenya needs to tame her appetite for loans, which has seen the country's debt surge.
In February 2023, Treasury CS Prof Njuguna Ndung’u noted that, "If we borrow, we can only borrow to rescue the costly short-term debt, for example, domestic debt.
“So we have to borrow concessional loans to solve the expensive debt, we will solve that, it is solutions that can work, solutions that have been seen to work."
Treasury adopted austerity measures with President Ruto intimating that he wanted to cut the budget deficit by reducing non-essential spending on traveling, training, and advertising.
The government had lampooned the previous administration for the ballooning debt in the country.
“The former administration was using Ksh8 billion in two months to subsidise maize flour and Ksh15 billion every month to subsidise fuel,” President Ruto lamented.
At the same time, First Lady Rachel Ruto, together with Computers for Schools, launched the Digital Skills Literacy Program.
The project aims to increase the number of women with digital knowledge while also training them in e-waste management. This was in line with International Women's Day 2023 called "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality."
"In the age of digitalization, it is essential to equip women with digital literacy skills to bridge the gender gap and ensure inclusivity in the digital age," stated First Lady.
