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President William Ruto has said all public services offered by the government will be paperless beginning next year. The president said currently, 3,000 national and county governments’ services are available on the digital space, committing to add an additional 2,000 by end of May this year.

“We will have 5,000 services by 30th of May and by the end of this year, all government services will be available online. And I mean all government services, including marriage and divorce,” the President said while launching the Fingo Africa App powered by pan-African lender Ecobank in Nairobi yesterday. The head of State said the government is currently deploying a robust digital superhighway infrastructure across the country, consisting of 100,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables.

This expanded infrastructure will create 25,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots as well as Digital Village Smart Hubs in each of Kenya’s 1,450 wards- the country’s lowest administrative units.

Fingo Africa Chief esxecutive and co-founder Kiiru Muhoya said the Fingo Africa App will empower Africa’s youth by enabling them to open a bank account via their mobile phones in less than four minutes, send money to other Fingo users for free and to M-Pesa users at subsidised rates.

They will also pay their bills from app, make utility payments and buy airtime among others.

The Kenya launch will be followed by a roll out across Ecobank’s pan-African footprint. Also present at the function was Ecobank Group CEO Jeremy Awori, who said the Fingo Africa App will drive financial inclusion not only in Kenya, but across the continent.

“We are proud to support the deployment of the Figo App, a game-changer in digital finance in Africa that brings many young people into the mainstream financial sector and caters to their needs and preferences,” Awori said.