The government will allocate Sh500 million in the 2025/2026 financial year budget to build more Huduma Centres, upgrade the deteriorating ones, and modernise the equipment.
The Principal Secretary, State Department for Public Service, Amos Gathecha, said the move aimed at expanding service delivery and ensuring efficiency in operations while addressing the existing gaps.
Speaking during the second annual Huduma Centre Managers’ conference held at the Kenya School of Government (KSG) Mombasa Campus, the PS said the Government was implementing austerity measures in budget implementation.
He therefore encouraged the managers to embrace the approach of doing more with less and devise creative and innovative solutions to bridge the resource gap.
“Huduma Centres have played a key role in improving the image of the government. That is where a member of the public can comfortably walk and get all the services that they require. Of course, when we have something like that, we have one or two rotten apples, but whenever we notice something untoward, we take action swiftly,” Gathecha said.
The conference served as a forum to take stock of the successes and challenges, establish areas of improvement and collaboration, and strategise on ways to actualise the Huduma Kenya mandate of transforming Public Service by ensuring access to efficient, effective, dignified, and citizen-centric services.
“Our goal is to enhance the customer experience, where all our customers leave our platforms with a smile as per the theme of this conference, ‘Service with a Smile,” he emphasized.
“One key pillar of the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) is providing government services online. In August 2023, during the 1st conference, the government had just launched the e-Citizen platform with 5,000 services. Today, this platform offers over 20,000 online services,” Gathecha added.
Huduma Kenya has four platforms, one of the 57 centers represented at the conference, Huduma Mashinani Outreach, which is the most common platform, followed by the Huduma Contact Centre and the Huduma e-platforms.
All these platforms have a total of 2600 staff members that serve an average of 28,000 daily customers across the country, and out of these numbers, as of December 31, 2024, the Huduma centres attained a customer satisfaction level of 80.8%, a 2% increase from quarter one, therefore providing a valuable chance to reflect on how to increase customer satisfaction, pushing it from the current 80.8% to 95% as per the financial year 2024-2025 budget.
Huduma Centre Manager in West Pokot Elvis Makhoha pointed out the good work the Ministry is doing in being directly involved in the growth of the centres and showing endless support.
He said the centre managers should be included in the training to gain the right skills and knowledge to enable them to navigate through modern challenges, therefore improving service delivery.
Another key challenge is the transferring of staff to different service stations within short periods, which he said was affecting service delivery, and he requested the PS to intervene.
Accompanying the PS were Huduma Kenya CEO Ben Kai Chilumo, Director General of the Kenya School of Government Nura Mohammed, and 57 Huduma Centre Managers representing all counties, among other top government officials.
By Fatma Said and Gesimba Gloria
