On 12^th May 2022, the Ajira Digital Program team led by Dr. Ehud Gachugu – Project Director at KEPSA visited Mombasa Law Courts together with representatives from Nairobi and Mombasa Judiciary as well as the Ministry of ICT, Innovations and Youth Affairs. This three-day visit that started on 10^th May was part of the ongoing plans by the Program to roll out the 2^nd phase of the Judiciary digitization pilot project that is meant to encourage and mobilize judicial officers in Nairobi and Mombasa to embrace the digitization of court operations.

The Program is supporting the Judiciary to digitize its operations by ensuring all case files are available on the new Case Tracking System (CTS) through transcription, data entry and scanning in order to complement the e-filling system launched by the Judiciary.

This digitization of Mombasa Law Courts aims to have 34,000 files scanned and entered into the CTS and about 4,000 files for data entry; these are physical files from the year 2015 to 2022. Approximately 300 young people are to benefit from these tasks. In addition, this digitization will help make the judicial processes easier, faster and reliable which will translate to increased access to justice for the public and businesses and eventually a better business environment and one that can attract more investors into the country.

Besides, the private sector remains committed to supporting the government in ensuring the social-economic transformation of the country. The public sector has been estimated to have the potential of contributing approximately 40% of digital work in the local ecosystem. Hence without an all government and private sector approach, then the digital economy will be unlikely to succeed.

Present at the visit included Hon. Pauline Wangari Mbulikah – Deputy Registrar High Court, Hon. Isabellah Nekesa Barasa- Deputy Registrar Environment and Land Court, Ms. Mercy Mghoi Masese – Lead Mass Scanning from Judiciary, Ms. Getrude Asango – Lead in Transcription from Judiciary, Ms. Zilpher Owiti – Director Capacity Dev, Innovation &Partnership at ICT Authority, Mr. Fredrick Odosy, Mr. Michael Kitheka (both representing Ajira Digital Program from the Ministry of ICT, Innovations and Youth Affairs), Mr. Jared Maranga and Mr. Llyord Mwaniki (both Ajira Digital Policy Advocacy Officer eGovernment at KEPSA).

This pilot project of digitizing the Judiciary will give Ajira Digital Program the necessary learnings that will shape the development of the government outsourcing of digital work blueprint. This will also give the Mombasa Law Courts total ownership of the process.