They have since been rebranded to Pasha Centres, translating to information centres or if you are like me, information access centres. This is in realisation that the digital villages are not a technological event or activity but an investment that has the potential of opening up government and effectively offer public service to the remotest village in the country.
But what the Pasha Centres are has been a subject of discussion and even controversy since the initial concept was unveiled more than a year ago. Listening to ten different people involved in the project talking about the Centres, one could be excused to thinking that its ten different projects that were being discussed.
With the kind of potential and interest from especially would be investors in the programme, the situation was to say the least worrying. I’m however, glad to report that this is quickly changing as the Kenya ICT Board took time to define, plan the deployment, roll-out, management and funding of the Pasha Centres. This to me was as refreshing as it was important.
It is almost official that the Pasha Centres will among other services offer online government services, plan are underway to link the Pashas with the implementation of e-Government in the country. This requires collaboration between the ICT Board and the Directorate of e-Government who are charged with the task of implementing e-Government in the country.
Turning traditional public services into online services is no mean task, it requires rationalisation, alignment and a sizeable investment in systems, people and re-engineering of processes within government and a massive awareness programme. This will take some time to be realised, but as long as we start walking in this direction in regard to the Pashas and e-Government, we shall get there in no time...so lets get going.
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