Laptops promise feasible if revenue collection goes digital

Enough money can be raised to fund the ambitious one laptop per child project if it adopts digital payments, permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said on Wednesday.

He said converting to digital payments will help the government increase its revenue collection by about 60 per cent raising enough money to finance its promises.

“Adopting digital revenue collection methods will basically seal existing loopholes so that all the money goes to treasury. It is estimated that collecting revenue electronically will add more than Sh500 billion to the public coffers which has previously ended up in people’s pockets,” Dr Ndemo said.

He noted that this would be more than enough to finance the laptop project which has been subjected to public criticism as expensive and unaffordable.

Policy statement

“This project will only cost about Sh150 billion annually. The sources of funds are there and we know what needs to be done to get the money, just that we needed a policy statement towards that line,” Mr Ndemo said.

“Digitisation of the lands registry for instance has increased revenue from Sh800 million to Sh9 billion. The president made that policy in his inaugural parliament address when he talked about anti-corruption measures that are targeted to close all loopholes.”

As one of its key campaign promises, the Jubilee Coalition headed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, pledged to give free solar-powered laptops to each of the 800,000 children joining Class One in 2014 targeting to raise a new tech-savvy generation that will fit better in the modern world.

Children-friendly apps

But since it was made public, the idea has attracted contrasting opinions with a portion of the public praising it while others opposed it as untenable. Some have supported the idea but feel a laptop is too complex for a class one kid.

However, Dr Ndemo yesterday pointed out that the laptops in question are customized for kids and fitted children-friendly apps.

“These are not the kind of laptops that we use for work. They will have digital learning content and a bit of educative entertainment that will make sense to pupils at that level,” he said.

He added that the government has embarked on a plan to make sure there is enough digital learning content by the end of this year which will include giving subsidies to companies engaging in content development.

Mr Ndemo was speaking at the launch of Nokia Life, a new sms-based service from the Finnish phone manufacturer offering its customers information on healthcare, agriculture, education and entertainment.