Public officials should no longer shun the internet

The advent of the internet in early 1990s brought immense adoption challenges to the Kenyan government that still reverberate diffusion strategies, especially in public communication. Despite its achievements in offering transactional, online services through web portals, provision of information and communicating and engaging of the public through social media is inadequate. 

Government websites are hardly updated and the information in them is inadequate. Its Facebook pages and Twitter handles bear marks of struggles with lengthy jargon-filled government-speak or forced accommodation of protocols. They are insignificant and unappealing to an audience burdened by information overload and yet to find the “what is in it for me” in the government literature. 

Historical events are to blame. Until recently, officials were not sure whether to acknowledge or respond to email communications. Nobody dared to create a Facebook page or a Twitter account because that would be despicable ridicule and demeaning to the serious serikali.

Social media was considered an unofficial form of communication. The authoritative government communication channel was a typewritten letter or statement on the timeless cream A4, 100 GSM Conqueror paper, complete with a seal and the emblem of the lions.

'Good-for-nothing invention'

The government backed the efforts of private sector technology enthusiasts and foreign donor institutions to automate its services. But that was restricted to processes it had trouble with — like payrolls, salaries and statistics. That is why the first computer department was domiciled at the Treasury. 

All went well until these gadgets started connecting and ‘talking to each other’ ,in what came to be the internet. Nobody saw it coming and nobody was prepared for it — just the way we now are yet to fathom what artificial intelligence and machine learning are about to do to us. In 1995, the then-Head of Public Service, Prof Philip Mbithi, warned officials against using the internet for official work.

Somebody must have whispered to President Daniel arap Moi that internet was a good-for-nothing invention that wrought sex, sleaze and slander. Moi was also concerned that his critics would use it to leak government secrets to foreigners and to undermine his rule. He relentlessly admonished the new technology at public rallies in the mid 1990s.

It took USAid three years to convince the government that its rigid stand on the use of internet was hurting the education sector, especially students and lecturers who needed to communicate and to do research. On June 2, 1999, it signed an MoU with USAid for the provision of internet to institutions of higher learning, under the Leyland Initiative. 

To date, government communication officials are overly cautious on the use of online channels. The “Winning Public Trust” report should exorcise this fear and usher in dynamic and responsive government communication approaches.

Mr Limo, a communications specialist, is a student of human computer interaction (HCI). [email protected]