The Government plans to roll out more Huduma Service Centres and accompanying services in all the 314 sub-counties in the country.
Public Service Performance and Delivery Management Cabinet Secretary Mr Moses Kuria said the centers, fondly referred to in government circles as the ‘crown jewel of government,’ have transformed public service delivery by providing prompt and seamless service using digital tools.
“They seek to save Kenyans the agony of moving from one State office to another in search of public service, which often was frustrating and discouraging, into a one-stop-shop,” said Mr Kuria.
The Cabinet Secretary indicated that Huduma Centers have for the past ten years stood out as a successful project of the Government.
Speaking in Nakuru during celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of Huduma Center’s existence, Mr. Kuria said the state would continue empowering the centers with training, manpower, and other resources to enable more members of the public to access various public services and information from integrated service platforms, aimed at promoting efficiency in public service delivery.
Huduma Kenya, a 2030 flagship project was launched in 2013 to transform public service delivery into more accessible, effective, efficient, dignified, and citizen-centric public service.
Huduma Kenya has operationalized three additional platforms, the Huduma Mashinani outreaches that take services to far-flung areas, Government Huduma contact centers that provide first and second-level escalation for all complaints, inquiries, and updates to Kenyans via telephone, and social media.
Huduma M and E services provide government information through the Huduma website.
The centers currently offer more than 21 services, from 12 ministries, departments, and agencies, with the most sought-after services being the issuance of duplicate identity cards, and seasonal parking tickets for Nairobi County, NHIF, and NSSF claims.
Huduma is also offering an online e-Huduma web portal to provide integrated services offered by ministries, departments, and State agencies and a mobile phone m-Huduma platform to offer M-Government services to Kenyans from the convenience of their mobile phones such as inquiries and applications.
Other services include Huduma call centers and an integrated multi-channel payment gateway to ease payments for government services including Visa, PayPal, and MPesa.
Mr. Kuria said the first Huduma Sub-County Center will be rolled out in Molo adding that the establishment of such facilities at the grassroots will save millions of shillings citizens use to access Huduma centers as most of them are located in county headquarters except Nairobi and Kajiado which have five and two centers respectively.
“My Ministry is exploring the possibility of collaborating with the National Government- Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) for funding the establishment of some of the sub-counties Huduma Centres. Huduma Kenya is known as the trusted interface between the citizens and government services and that’s the reason Huduma is here to stay. Huduma Kenya must find its definite place to take digital services to the people,” said the CS.
On digitization, he commended Huduma’s leadership for being innovative and embracing the digital era, which resonates well with the digitization pillar of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
Some of the technologies are the service by appointment (digital queuing and customer feedback system), track my service, virtual desktop infrastructure, Internet Protocol (IP) phones, CCTVs, and LAN-connected printers.
The technologies, Mr Kuria said, have eliminated queues at the centers and reduced the waiting time for a service and Kenyans only visited centers, when documents were ready and received a confirmation message.
The CS said Universal agents’ now renamed BETA agents will augment the centers by offering multiple services from various ministries, departments, and agencies.
“The BETA agents should reduce the congestion at Huduma centers and reduce the cost of deploying services to Huduma centers.
The BETA agents will play a critical role in supporting access to the over 5000 digitized government services by citizens,” he said.
Huduma Centre staff were urged to familiarize themselves with all the services in the e-citizen platform to assist Persons Living with Disabilities and digitally challenged people.
The Cabinet Secretary committed to fast-track the onboarding of the Huduma managers onto the Huduma structures.
He put on notice lazy civil servants saying their days are numbered saying they will have no room in government.
Kuria called on civil servants to work with dedication saying that Kenyans who pay them want quality services. He vowed to streamline the public sector.
The CS cited the millions of unemployed youths all over the country saying they’re ready to step in and fill gaps left by any public servant who is not willing to live up to the government’s expectations.
Mr Kuria announced that his Ministry was exploring ways in which youths who register Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) at Huduma Center are linked with the Kenya School of Government (KSG) to build their capacity through advisory services and training.
The partnership, he said, will target scaling up capacities of Micro, Small, and Medium enterprises (MSME) in agribusiness, and creative sectors among others.
Under the program, it is envisaged that KSG will champion both public and private-sector-led development to enable MSMEs to participate fully in the economy and create jobs.
He said that KSG was well-positioned to support the micro, small, and medium enterprises with the best practices in business development and advisory.
Empowering small and medium enterprises requires multi-sectorial efforts, he added.
Mr Kuria stated that Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are critical drivers of economic growth and contribute largely to income generation and employment. The sector, he observed, is critical and no single institution can handle it on its own.
The CS further disclosed that the National Youth Service plans to increase the number of recruits from the current 10,000 to 100,000 per year by 2027.
He said the government was continually expanding the training facilities to accommodate the increased number of recruits, who will be drafted into the service.
“The National Youth Service (NYS) training facility will now be able to accommodate about 100,000 recruits by 2027,” added Mr Kuria.
An increase in the number of recruitments will be done gradually from 10,000 this year, to 20,000 in January next year then to 40,000 in 2025, and so forth.
Public Service, Performance, and Delivery Management Principal Secretary Mr Amos Gathecha said Huduma Centers have served over 120 million customers over the last 10 years, offering in-person and assisted services.
He indicated that customer satisfaction is at 95 percent with 18 local, regional, and international awards.
Mr Gathecha disclosed that in 2016 the center won the United Nations award for ‘improving service delivery, in 2018 it was awarded the African Union’s award for ‘Most Innovative Partner in Service Delivery, while in 2022 the African Union awarded it the ‘Best Innovative technologies in Africa.
The Principal Secretary also stated that this year Huduma Center was crowned the winner of ‘Public Service Innovation in Africa at a fete held in Zimbabwe.
“Huduma has won the hearts of many countries and so far over 20 of them have benchmarked with Huduma Kenya,’’ said the Principal Secretary.
By Anne Mwale
