H.E Alex Tolgos the chairman of the ICT Committee at the CoG and Governor Elgeyo Marakwet County, attended the Senate ICT Committee Induction meeting held at Pride Inn Nyali hotel, Mombasa County on 12th and 13th April 2018. ICT although not a devolved function is considered an enabler for the successful implementation of devolution in Kenya. “ICT is the future” said H.E. Tolgos “County Governments are looking to establish private public partnerships to support their individual ICT visions and deliver on their mandate”

Since the year 2013, most counties have done quite a number of projects in their own capacity including automation of revenue collection, automation of land rates and records, digital villages, setup of youth resource centres where youths access ICT services such as recording studios for free and many others. H.E. Tolgos also brought to light the challenges that Counties have been facing in ICT the most urgent being the lack of adequate resources for implementation of ICT projects. In his recommendation H.E. Tolgos proposed that as a standard, a conditional grant should be set aside for the ICT sector and further called on the Senate to assist counties come up with regulations which will set a ceiling of at least 5% of Total budget for ICT projects and harmonise the existing ACTS in line with changes technology and innovations.

Further, discussions during the meeting established the achievements of each institution present and chattered future engagements between them to ensure the fulfilment of the Presidents big 4 agenda and most importantly the seamless implementation of Devolution in Kenya. County governments have made tremendous steps towards using ICT for better governance in all aspects through automation of county operations such as revenue collection and building plans approvals.

The meeting was also attended by the Ministry of ICT, Communications Authority, Post Master General and Kenya National Library Services,