The national government has finished the installation of Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure in all state departments within Bungoma county .
This will ensure that county headquarters and all sub counties are digitally connected in offering government services.
Speaking in Bungoma while on an inspection tour, the principal secretary in the ICT ministry Jerome Ochieng said the department has completed several key installations within Bungoma county and were now receiving feedback from the end-users.
“The Last Mile County Connectivity Project (LMCCP), has connected various Government offices in the metro at Bungoma County Headquarters, the Referral Hospital, Police and Prisons amongst others. At the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the technology has come in handy to help conduct Government business with ease," Ochieng said.
Bungoma County hosts six active Constituency Innovation Hubs known as the Ajira Youth Empowerment Centres (YECs) and another five are hosted in schools, which need to be migrated to publicly accessible facilities.
Ochieng said the CIH project is a collaboration between the Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs and the National Government Constituency Development Fund Board to avail ICT infrastructure closer to the grassroots level.
“Through the Ajira Digital Programme these centres are being operationalized and staffed. The Ajira Digital Portal also gives the youth the opportunity to learn digital skills as well as access digital jobs as a means of creating meaningful employment and improving lives,” he said.
He said the Ajira programme is also piloting the transcription of court records in three counties namely;- Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.
He further said this will be rolled out to other counties as part of the ongoing digitization of the justice system following the successful launches in 2020 of the case management system by the ODPP, e-filing system by the Judiciary and digital OB by the National Police Service.
This he said is being done in partnership with various stakeholders.