The Universal Service Fund (USF) instituted by the Communications Authority of Kenya is set to boost communication connection across various services covering the remote and hard to reach areas of the county and is projected to be completed in five years.
Principal Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communications and The Digital Economy Mr. Eric Kiraithe said the Communication Authority of Kenya was keen on forming a partnership with private service providers to ensure communication connectivity across remote areas in order to curb the menace of insecurity.
“We set up the fund to support private sector provide connection and so far, six sub-locations have been earmarked to benefit from mobile connectivity in the ongoing 2021 Phase II of the voice infrastructure connectivity project, that will see residents enjoy the transformation brought about by mobile communications services,” Kiraithe said.
Kiraithe who was speaking to KNA at a Kabarnet resort, said the sub-locations include Kaptuya, Nginyang East,Mugurin, Kulal, Akoret and Kapedo North.
He added that through the fund, CA has supported public libraries in partnership with the Kenya National Library Service to transform them into e-resource centres by connecting them to Internet and providing them with computers, thus greatly improving the usage of the libraries.
He, however, noted that during the first phase of the implementation in 2016 they faced challenges leading to the delay in the completion of the projects in several areas, key among them being vandalism of the telecommunications infrastructure causing huge financial losses and in effect, impacting the Government efforts of ensuring that all Kenyans have access of ICT services.
“Another major challenge was lack of buy-in of the projects by the beneficiary local communities as evidenced in resistance in some areas has led to delays in timely implementation of the projects,” he said.
Kiraithe said to address the challenges, the Authority has been engaging communities in beneficiary areas to interact with them, create awareness on the importance of the communications infrastructure and the immense opportunities that have been brought by services and most importantly, ownership and security of the infrastructure.
In addition, the Kiraithe said through the Education Broadband Connectivity Project, many schools were able to successfully integrate Internet in learning, significantly enhancing the learning experience by making it easier for teachers to explain concepts, and in effect, improved performances for many schools, noting that ten secondary schools across the county benefitted from connectivity to high -speed internet during the first phase.
He added that other areas of interest to the government are in agriculture and empowering communities to acquire digital skills, the establishment if ICT innovation hubs in various communities to promote local content development and enable them participate actively in national development and the global digital economy
The Authority is working closely with the National Government Administration Officers and the County Governments in these engagements to ensure minimized challenges are witnessed and build on lessons learnt from the previous project.
By Caroline Cherono and Michelle Yatich
