No Jobs In Kiambu Government For Computer illiterate Youth- Kabogo.

ICT illiterate residents, especially the youth, will no longer get a job at the Kiambu Government if what Governor William Kabogo said will come to pass.

While awarding certificates to 466 beneficiaries of the Vusha Youth empowerment program, Kabogo ordered the county's public service board to only absorb employees who were ICT compliant since all its systems had been digitalised.

He added that all polytechnics in the county will be offering a three-month computer course whose graduates will be outsourced by the county for service in various fields.

"The county government will outsource human capital with ICT skills since we have digitised most of the services. In this fiscal year, the county plans to increase funds for ICT training so that many people enroll for the training. Those who will graduate from the schools will be given priority when the county government is hiring staff," he said.

Kabogo said his government has taken up the Vusha Youth Empowerment Programme which has seen more than 1,000 youths acquire ICT skills.

The program, which is a partnership between the County Government and Africa Center for Women Infomation and Technology (ACWICT), is funded by the Rockefeller foundation and Microsoft East Africa. It seeks to improve the employability prospects and income generating capacities of young people aged 20-35 years from poor and disadvantaged households by training them in ICT.

"The programme seeks to improve the employment prospects and income generating capacities of young people, aged 20-35, from poor and disadvantaged households by training them in ICT," he said.

But he said the youths are also being empowered to create jobs for others.

A total of 378 youths who were trained under the venture. Of these, 42 have set up enterprises while 11 work for online platforms and earn between Sh1,000 - Sh10,000) per task.

Kiambu County is a beneficiary of the expanded the National Optic Fibre Backbone Project (NOFBI II) that covers the metropolis regions of the county.

Late last year, Kiambu County launched its own digital platform that included the enablement of cashless payments, an online citizen services portal and a robust back-end management system to support it.

Kiambu County Government’s ICT Roadmap incorporated two phases, the first of which involved revenue automation and business intelligence. The second one was to involve the complete automation of devolved County functions with the stated objective of 600% growth in revenue collection within five years.

On April 15^th, 2015, the county, in partnership with Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group, launched the Kiambu County Huduma Card that was aimed at facilitating the collection of taxes in the county. The Kiambu County Card is part of the Kiambu County Digitika Programme to aid revenue collection and management and part of KCB’s wider initiative to enhance service delivery to citizens in the ongoing devolution process.

Present at the launch was the then Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Information, Communication and technology Dr. Fred Matiang’i, who said that the era of doing business in the analogue way was long gone and cases of escorting cash in armored cars has been overtaken by collecting money on the digital platform.