There is no doubt that Kenya has the potential to be one of Africa's great success stories. It's among the fastest growing economies in East Africa and successfully rebased its economy last year, a strategy that saw its nominal gross domestic product rise 25% to $55 billion, making it a middle-income status country. It is now the largest economy in East Africa, with growth anticipated to rise to 6.1 % in 2017. The trillion dollar question is, where to next for Kenya and its people? How do they translate this hard-won economic advantage and growth into sustained ongoing prosperity and take their place on the competitive world economic stage?

One of the answers to this question lies buried in the complex world of processes, systems, data and machine language in other words, it's a digital answer. It's no surprise that e-government offers the most powerful and exciting potential to revolutionize the way government organisations handle service delivery.

According to the 2016 Country Economic Memorandum, Kenya's growth prospects will depend heavily on digital innovation and governance to achieve rapid and sustained growth. At the Regional e-Government for Local Authorities Forum held in Kenya earlier this year, it was stated that East African authorities need to fast-track planning and implementation of information and communication technologies in an effort to increase the efficiency of service delivery.

KRA and SAP partner for Success

Established in 1995, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has the responsibility of collecting revenue on behalf of the Kenyan government to finance service delivery to an estimated population of +44 million, which increases by one million per annum. To help drive efficiencies, KRA is partnering with SAP - market leader in enterprise application software - to implement a core technology application called SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

The new partnership also marks the dawn of a new era, positioning KRA as the first public sector organisation in the East
Africa region to adopt SAP's advanced real-time and in-memory technology. Ezekiel Saina, Commissioner of Corporate Support Services at KRA added, "The decision to implement what may on face value appear to be just another ICT solution, in fact means that KRA is adopting new-age technology that can scale, speed, and accelerate decision-making and business management on a truly revolutionary platform. This innovative platform, SAP HANA, will assist KRA transform business operations and support the organisation as we adapt and shape our financial industry to meet the demands of the Digital Economy."

As a result of this transformative decision, every process of government from supply management, employee engagement to governance, risk and compliance will now run seamlessly on SAP HANA in real-time, making KRA more citizen-centric, fast and efficient.

E-government gains momentum in East Africa

When compared to industrialised countries, there are some major challenges affecting these kinds of ambitious roll-outs. These include lack of strategic 'e-readiness', less funding, less widespread use of ICT and older generations of technology in place. However, Kenya has one major ace up its sleeve - the will to accelerate its ICT journey. With the support of the KRA and other development partners, there have been significant structural and economic reforms that are contributing not only to efficiencies but to growth.

e-Government is a non-negotiable for national development

It's been proven across the globe that effective ICT has the power to transform the generation and delivery of public services. Digital solutions, like those supplied by SAP, help identify, remediate, monitor, exploit and manage enterprise risks in addition to coordinating the utilization of people, process and technology to improve governance, risk and compliance (GRC) effectiveness while managing costs.

"Kenya is renowned for its entrepreneurial spirit and its technological and financial innovations and we are proud to support the KRA as it demonstrates that e-government is an attainable reality. We would also like to thank Alttab Africa Ltd, an SAP partner, for their assistance and support during KRA's massive technology leap," commented Ashley Boag, Acting Managing Director of SAP East Africa. "No government can make headway in its vision for implementation without the full adoption of an e-government system. As companies across Africa continue to adopt technology and transform their operations, they will become increasingly able to meet the demands of e-government and more importantly, the Digital Economy."

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