Budget allocations for the different ICT Projects in Kenya

The 2017/18 budget was this year presented earlier than normal, before the month of June, against a backdrop of the upcoming elections.

Cabinet Secretary of The National Treasury, Mr. Henry Rotich, announced the socioeconomic successes of the Jubilee Administration, before its term comes to an end.

Themed as “Creating Jobs, Delivering a Better Life for All Kenyans,” this year’s budget objective was to leverage on the transformation the Jubilee Government has achieved and emphasize the need to support sectors with high potential for creating jobs for youth, such as manufacturing and agriculture.

The proposed expenditure of KES 2.630 trillion is the largest ever and continues the trend of expansionary budgets under the current Government designed to spur economic growth.

Among the ICT projects that got an allocation in this year’s budget were: Konza Technopolis, Single Window Support Project, IFMIS and Digital Literacy Progrmme.

The Government has allocated Ksh 0.6 billion to development at Konza Technopolis, Ksh 0.3 billion for the Single Window Support Project and Ksh 0.15 billion for continued roll out of IFMIS to counties to further enhance service delivery by Government agencies.

This was announced by Cabinet Secretary of The National Treasury, Henry Rotich as he presented the 2017/18 budget.

During the 2017/18 Budget statement presentation, Mr. Rotich also noted that the Jubilee Government had lived up to its promise to connect every county to Fibre Optic technology and improve service delivery through the use of ICT, in order to ease access to information by all Kenyans.

“Today, every county headquarters is connected to the fibre optic network, raising Kenyans access Government services through Huduma Centres and other digital platforms, with ease and at a reduced cost,” he said.

Rotich also stated that he had allocated Ksh 0.6 billion to development at Konza Technopolis. Last year the Government of Kenya in partnership with the Government of South Korea, established the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) at Konza Technopolis, a move that is set to drive innovations and create more jobs as well as enhance the quality of higher learning while nurturing a technologically advanced population producing creative young talents.

On the Digital Literacy Programme to public primary schools across the country, Mr. Rotich pointed out that the Government targets to finish distributing the remaining ones before the end of this year.

“To further entrench digital literacy among our children, and cover the remainder of the pupils across the county, I have allocated Ksh 13.4 billion for deployment of digital devices to schools,” he concluded.