Elgeyo Marakwet Governor Wisley Rotich has partnered with telecoms giant Safaricom to digitise most county services and improve delivery to residents.
Safaricom will develop and host a digital platform to be known as 'My App', which will provide digital services and citizen engagement.
Safaricom will also provide revenue collection, smart water metering, tracking of county ambulances, bulk SMS services and managed security services to enhance network security and disaster recovery.
"Safaricom will also assist us to digitise NHIF and improve network coverage. Our residents will have a platform to engage and report incidents in their location through the portal by photos and videos," Rotich said.
Rotich signed an MoU with Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa on Monday in Nairobi.
Ndegwa had two month ago visited Elgeyo Marakwet where he held extensive discussions with Rotich on the possible areas for partnership.
The partnership will also benefit the county by embedding payments to M-Pesa, fibre roll out within the county and ICT hub training and small and micro enterprise enablement.
“The deal with Safaricom is a milestone for our county because it will go a long way in helping us to improve services to residents,” Rotich said.
Ndegewa pledged to help the county improve on service delivery.
“We are happy with the partnership resulting from lengthy engagement with the Elgeyo Marakwet leadership for the benefit of our people,” Ndegwa said.
Governor Rotich has recently gotten a head start in attracting investors to his county within his first year in office.
Within few month in office, the governor has signed investment and development deals that generate about Sh3 billion for new development initiatives.
He aims to create more 10,000 direct and indirect new jobs from the new investments.
“My desire is to do the best for our county because our people have bestowed on us their trust and hope to change their lives using the leadership positions we now hold,” Rotich said.
Rotich says he is grateful to God and thanks the new investors who have agreed to work with him in transforming the county.
The county boss was excited a few months ago when the UK government and Select Fresh Produce Kenya Limited (Select Fresh) signed a deal to invest more than Sh2.4 billion.
The money will construct a 60,000-tonne processing project for Irish and sweet potatoes in Elgeyo Marakwet county. More than 5,000 jobs are expected to be created.
British High Commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott and Rotich launched the project to improve farm produce for local and export market.
The project is expected to help reduce post-harvest losses and provide ready off-take of potatoes, guaranteeing steady farm prices for more than 10,000 smallholder potato farmers in Elgeyo Marakwet and the region.
(Edited by V. Graham)
