Level of E-governamnce readiness in Kenya: a case of Laikipia County
Joseph Gichuki
Mount Kenya University
David Kibaara
Meru University of Science & Technology
Prof. Gregory Wanyembi
Mount Kenya University
Keywords: E-government, County governments, ICT delivery, ICT
Abstract
E-governance is becoming an important factor in the development process and service delivery
in public and private institutions. However, the Kenya devolved units of governments must
demonstrate ICT readiness for e-governance to be successful in their endeavor to achieve this
objective. This study sought to determine the level of e-government readiness in Laikipia
County. To realize this objective, the study surveyed a sample of the offices in the Laikipia subcounties
i.e. Laikipia West, Laikipia East and Laikipia North offices to describe the state of egovernment
readiness in public offices, state of infrastructure, policies implementation and social
factors. This was achieved through data collection by use of interviews and questionnaires from
the Laikipia County staff. A sample size of 32 respondents was identified through stratified
sampling. Through the above two techniques (questionnaire and interviews) primary data was
collected and analysed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data and the results were
presented in tables. The study established that although the various e-government initiatives
present at work place in Laikipia County fulfill the purposes that they are intended for, some of
the most important elements of ICT infrastructure are not in place. The study established that the
network in the area of work is not reliable and does not provide a substantial up-time. In
addition, Laikipia County government has not provided adequate hardware components for the
required e-government tasks. This study also established that reliable hardware components to
carry out computer tasks are not provided and all the required or necessary software components
for use in e-government are not in place. The software that exists is not regularly updated to cater
for the e-government emerging requirements and there exist no contingency plan for data backup
and recovery in case of any loss. The study established that in general there is inadequate
infrastructure to support e-government initiatives in Laikipia County. This study concluded that
the level of e-government readiness in Laikipia County is low given the deficits in ICT
infrastructure, lack of e-government policy and lack of security of information in e-government systems. The national government should assist Laikipia County government improve their
readiness to e-government adoption.
Author Biographies
Joseph Gichuki, Mount Kenya University
School of Computing & Informatics
Mount Kenya University
Prof. Gregory Wanyembi, Mount Kenya University
School of Computing and Informatics
Mount Kenya University
