Sh6bn China loan to hook up districts

Finance Permanent Secretary, Joseph Kinyua. Photo/FILE

The government has secured a Sh6 billion loan from China to connect e-services through fibre optic cables to 36 districts in the country.

The project will also loop in 36 districts with a large area network connection to allow for e-government services — meaning all government transactions could soon be conducted through the Internet from the remotest of places.

The governments of China and Kenya have laid a framework for the funding of a national optic fibre backbone infrastructure and e-government expansion project.

“The funds will connect Nairobi with former provincial headquarters that will provide a safer and faster mode of information transmission between the government and the citizens,” said Treasury permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua.

The loan will be repaid over a 15-20 year period by the Treasury.

Mr Kinyua also said Kenya would seek more funding — to the tune of Sh21 billion — from the Chinese government for the Lamu-South Sudan-Ethiopia (LAPPSET) project.

In early June, Kenya received Sh31 billion from the Export-Import Bank of China for Olkaria geothermal wells drilling project.

“We also call upon the Chinese government to support Kenya in a project to construct a resort city in Isiolo and a railway line that will link Kenya to South Sudan and Ethiopia,” said Mr Kinyua.

China vice-minister for Commerce, Mr Chen Jien, called for more transparency in Kenya’s economic dealings with China, saying that trade receipts and payments between the two countries amount to over Sh195 billion annually.

Automate services

The IT infrastructure back-up funding is a relief to the Kenya government which has been having plans to fully automate its services.

Recently, a mobile phone craze seems to have hijacked the process, with m-government services being an example — where Sms (short message service) is used to inform the public of certain government projects.

However, some documents like law reports and, recently, pay-in –slips of civil servants can be accessed in cyber cafés.

Last August, Kenya sought expertise from a team of 12 employees of IBM, an international information technology services provider, for the development of an electronic masterplan for the country.

The government had indicated that Kenyans would vote electronically in the next General Election, but financial constraints on the part of the voting authority have led to shelving of the plan.