On November 21, 2018, the Kenya Blockchain taskforce said it had finished a 192-page report and was waiting to present it to ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru before the document was released to the public.
The team, which was formed in February, had been examining how artificial intelligence and distributed ledger systems could be used in Kenya’s development agenda. Michael Onyango, speaking at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) during a session titled Introduction to Blockchain Development – Anonymity and its Identity, said the report focused heavily on areas that could support President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Four Agenda.
Onyango said the taskforce had received about 150 presentations and later narrowed that down to roughly 90 people who appeared before it, including international presenters. He added that the group had requested an appointment with Mucheru so the report could be formally handed over and then made public.
When Mucheru announced Dr. Bitange Ndemo as the head of the 11-member team, he said the broader goal was to build a digital economy built around e-services. Mucheru said he wanted Kenya to rank highly in online searches for terms such as entrepreneurship, venture capital funds, digital economy, e-commerce, media, logistics and distribution, jobs and employment, health and education.
The taskforce also supported the idea of a central bank-issued digital currency that would be easier to regulate and supply. That position echoed remarks by International Monetary Fund chief Christine Legarde, who, during the release of Winds of Change: The Case for New Digital Currency at the Singapore Fintech Festival, urged central banks to embrace cryptocurrency issuance.
Legarde said cryptocurrencies were offering a more stable, quicker and cheaper form of e-money. She also said central banks should work with the private sector, arguing that digital currencies could be managed in a way similar to how banks handle cash and that such transactions were safe, immediate, cheap and semi-anonymous.
