New IT system eases payments at Kenya's Law Office

By LONAH KIBET

Service delivery at the State Law Office is expected to improve. This follows the purchase of a Sh14 million IT system from Safaricom. The service is expected to be operational in two weeks.

Attorney-General Prof Githu Muigai, while signing the partnership deal with Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore at Sheria House Thursday, hailed the move, saying it was a major step towards making e-Government a reality. “We want to set the pace and be ahead of the public by embracing modern technology. We are committed towards reinventing the way we deliver our services to the public,” said Prof Muigai. Under the deal, Safaricom Enterprise Business Unit will offer the office an M-Pesa pay bill number and bulk payments number.

The pay bill number will enable the public make their payments, such as company searches, society registration fees, company registration fees among others, seamlessly without the hustle of queuing or traveling to the office.  The office currently receives more applications with numbers exceeding 500 applications for companies daily.  The bulk payments number will also enable disbursement of public trustee funds to the various beneficiaries within the country.

Muigai said the deal will aid decentralisation of the services offered by the Government agency. “We are glad to be partnering with Safaricom towards this venture especially now that the country embraces a devolved system of government and seeks to offer services through digital form,” he said. Muigai said the system will enhance efficiency and service delivery as well as encourage more people to open up businesses across the country. Collymore noted that the partnership would make government quicker and subsequently more responsive to the people’s needs.

The service package will also include an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data platform for tracking progress of services requests, a contact centre and a Wide Area Network connecting all their 12 branches to the headquarters in Nairobi.