| dc.description.abstract | E-governance is becoming an important factor in the development process and service delivery in public and private institutions. However, the Kenya devolved units of governments must demonstrate ICT readiness for e-governance to be successful in their endeavor to achieve this objective. This study sought to determine the level of e-government readiness in Laikipia County. To realize this objective, the study surveyed a sample of the offices in the Laikipia sub-counties i.e. Laikipia West, Laikipia East and Laikipia North offices to describe the state of e-government readiness in public offices, state of infrastructure, policies implementation and social factors. This was achieved through data collection by use of interviews and questionnaires from the Laikipia County staff. A sample size of 32 respondents was identified through stratified sampling. Through the above two techniques (questionnaire and interviews) primary data was collected and analysed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data and the results were presented in tables. The study established that although the various e-government initiatives present at work place in Laikipia County fulfill the purposes that they are intended for, some of the most important elements of ICT infrastructure are not in place. The study established that the network in the area of work is not reliable and does not provide a substantial up-time. In addition, Laikipia County government has not provided adequate hardware components for the required e-government tasks. This study also established that reliable hardware components to carry out computer tasks are not provided and all the required or necessary software components for use in e-government are not in place. The software that exists is not regularly updated to cater for the e-government emerging requirements and there exist no contingency plan for data backup and recovery in case of any loss. The study established that in general there is inadequate infrastructure to support e-government initiatives in Laikipia County. This study concluded that the level of e-government readiness in Laikipia County is low given the deficits in ICT infrastructure, lack of e-government policy and lack of security of information in e-government systems. The national government should assist Laikipia County government improve their readiness to e-government adoption. | en_US |
