Nyamira residents have commended the government’s initiative of establishing Huduma centres across the country for their one-stop-shop model of offering major government services at the click of a button. Duke Nyauma, a resident of Nyamira North commended the government’s initiative to offer their most sought-after services from one physical location, the Huduma centres in all counties countrywide which according to me are very efficient. ‘Before the launch of Huduma centres, which have offered us services in Kenya for 10 years now, the agony of even tracing the physical location of particular government offices, while seeking services was torturous because the offices were scattered all over town and even to its outskirts. Citizens could make several trips to and from various buildings within town seeking government services because not all of them were physically located on government land,’ Nyauma recalled. ‘When one finally located the office, where services were offered, we would sometimes fail to be served effectively because of various hitches like power outages, lack of a working machine or printing papers and you were therefore compelled to foot extra unplanned bills to access services,’ Nyauma said. ‘At Huduma centre, their office is physically located in the town centre. You make inquiries and access government services from one building without any hitches including assessing your current health status for free. They are efficient in service provision, have friendly officers who guide and serve us well professionally, and when they give us an appointment later again to come back and pick a document which requires some time for processing you will always find it ready for just picking,’ Nyauma excitedly commented Another, Charles Nyabate who had come to file his tax returns at the KRA booth hinted that the cyber cafes in town had become con syndicates who charged exorbitantly high for the services and the attendants could not give you satisfaction, whether you had successfully filed your returns to avoid the fines charged due to noncompliance. He further said that the government’s Huduma Centre service efficiency is unmatched compared to when we used to seek the same services at the government offices. ‘The confidentiality with which the Huduma centres keep your personal information is commendable and unmatched, unlike at the cyber cafes where papers with confidential information of people’s particulars and private information could sometimes be found lying all over the working tables without their knowledge or consent. Nyamira Huduma centre deputy manager, Ronald Makori appreciates the opportunity to serve Kenyans from Nyamira and confirmed that the support they have from their bosses from the headquarters has enabled them to deliver their mandate to Kenyans. ‘In Nyamira County Huduma centre we offer 14 services and serve an average population of 3000 clients in a month. We introduced a program dubbed ‘Huduma mashinani’ to enable residents who are very vulnerable in our remote villages and are not able to access our services to have an opportunity to be served because it is their right,’ Makori confirmed. He explained that in Nyamira they have however not started offering Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) services where youths joining university and students undertaking various professional courses in various tertiary institutions can apply for financial aid. However, Makori promised that they have requested for the service and soon they will start offering. The deputy manager further clarified that their services are cashless and any citizen who is not able to transact using their phones has cyber-services, which can enable them to remit statutory fees for services online with ease. Huduma Kenya programme has marked a decade in the provision of transformational public services, which are technologically compliant, since opening of the first Huduma Centre on 7th November 2013 at GPO, Teleposta Towers. The country is currently actively operating 52 Huduma centres.
Source: Kenya News Agency