Kenyans seeking Huduma Centre services in some parts of the country were turned away on Thursday following a boycott by internet providers Safaricom and Telkom.
The providers withdrew their services following the non payment of a Sh. 85 million internet bill by the national government.
The common excuse at many centres, though, was that systems were down.
Huduma’s website was also down on Thursday afternoon, pointing to a larger outage that affected thousands across the country who seek huduma centre services online.
Cabinet Secretary for Public Service Prof Margaret Kobia under whose docket Huduma Centres fall confirmed the outage but has assured Kenyans that services will be restored as soon as possible, possibly by the end of the day.
“What is unavailable is ICT services which are offered by Safaricom and Telkom Kenya who halted their services because we are yet to pay outstanding bills of around Sh85 million from the previous financial year,” she said.
She explained that the bills had been overlooked as the government had closed its books on June 30 and opened new ones for 2018/2019, hence prompting a delay in settling last year’s bills.
The bills are paid on a quarterly basis.
“We are however working with the service providers to ensure that these bills are settled and full services restored to Huduma as soon as possible,” she said.