The National Government will build a Sh30 million state-of-the-art model Huduma-Jitume centre in Nandi County, Public Service, Performance, and Delivery Management Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has said.
Speaking during a national tree planting exercise at Kimondi Forest, Emgwen Sub County, where 20,000 seedlings were planted, Kuria said the centre will be built by the National Youth Service (NYS).
The CS noted that going forward, Huduma centres and digital hubs known as jitume, where youths access digital services and opportunities for job creation, will be merged in order to offer effective and efficient services to local residents.
“Construction work will commence next week. I am calling upon the governor to sit down with all elected leaders and decide where the centre will be built. This will be a model centre where people from all over the country will come to bench mark,” he said.
Huduma Kenya was launched in 2013 to transform public service delivery into a more accessible, effective, dignified, and citizen-centric public service, while Digital Hub was started in 2018 by what is now called the Ministry of ICT and Digital Economy to equip young Kenyans with essential technology skills, enabling them to tap into the digital job market.
Kuria said the Ministry will also work with the National Government-Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) for funding, adding that the centre will be installed with high internet speed and modern equipment.
He said the NYS has donated 2.5 million tree seedlings to the whole country and called on leaders and local administrations to continue with tree planting sensitization in their regions and ensure citizens plant trees regularly to combat climate change.
“Our future is our environment. Let’s take care of our environment by planting trees and protecting our forests,” he said, adding that climate change is the biggest problem the world is facing right now.
State Department for Information, Communication, and Digital Economy Principal Secretary Eng. John Tanui said digitization is going to support this agenda of tree planting to ensure that we do not need to cut so many trees to provide papers for our operations in government or in our businesses.
Eng. Tanui stated that the use of emails, WhatsApp, SMS, and phone calls have enabled paperless business transactions in government and played a key role in reducing the need to cut down trees to provide paper.
He said the ministry will support the construction of the model centre by increasing 100,000 km of fibre in the country to enable effective communication in every part of the country.
“In Nandi County, already work is going on to ensure schools, Tvet institutions, universities, and all market centres have been installed with fiber. We are also installing digital hubs in every sub-county to enable our youths to exploit digital space, create jobs, and generate income,” he said.
Nandi Governor Stephen Sang appealed to the Chief Conservator of Forests to find a way of protecting the trees that they have planted so that they can grow.
“We want to increase our forest cover from 16.9 per cent to 25 per cent and that can only be achievable if the trees we are planting are protected to maturity,” Sang said.
The second-term governor called upon the national government to work on modalities that will not only empower the community but also ensure they directly benefit from the forest resources.
By Linet Wafula
