President William Ruto has revealed that the country lost Ksh.15 billion as the Uhuru Kenyatta administration pushed for the controversial Huduma Namba project to be implemented.
Dr. Ruto called the project “a complete fraud” on Friday, announcing that the government will launch a similar project within 90 days.
“That Huduma Namba was a complete fraud because we lost almost Ksh.15 billion and got very little out of it,” said Dr. Ruto.
The Huduma Namba digital ID was supposed to be a unique and permanent Personal Identification Number that was randomly assigned to every resident individual at birth or upon registration/enrolment and would only expire or be retired upon the individual’s death.
President Ruto spoke at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) during the launch of over 5,000 digital government services on the eCitizen Kenya Portal dubbed ‘Gava Mkononi.’
Dr. Ruto was shown around various government agencies and shown how they are digitising their programmes in order to make it easier for Kenyans to access government services.
In contrast to Huduma Namba, the Head of State stated that his government will launch its digital ID project at a much lower cost.
“We must demonstrate in the next 90 days that it is possible for us to have a digital ID without spending Ksh.15 billion and without defrauding the people of Kenya,” said President Ruto.
“Those who did that should be ashamed of themselves.”
The Gava Mkononi App is being promoted as one that will improve access to government services as well as revenue collection and service delivery.
The services will be streamlined with the implementation of Gava Express, which will be modelled after Huduma Centres and will provide services at the grassroots level.
Gava Express will be driven in collaboration with the private sector and aims to open over 300,000 outlets.
