Government to implement e- procurement and digitization of public assets

Esther Mwangi and Dennis Rasto-KNA

Thirty county governments have already joined the end-to-end e-government procurement (e-GP) platform, with 10 more said to be waiting for approval by the Controller of Budget (CoB).

This comes even as Principal Secretary for Public Investments and Assets Management at the National Treasury Wagunda Odede maintained that the government will press on with the implementation of e-procurement (e-GP) and digitization of public assets, with projection that the two systems would help save up to Sh150 billion in the current financial year by sealing loop holes previously exploited.

The Principal Secretary noted that the government rolled out the e-GP on July, 1, 2025, to automate procurement processes of counties, all State Departments and agencies starting from planning process to payment of services.

On public resource management, Mr Odede stated that the government had operationalized the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) Asset and Inventory Module and cascaded it to county governments.

He explained that the nationwide IFMIS) Asset and Inventory Module initiative was aimed at digitizing public asset records, enhancing accountability, and streamlining financial reporting across all levels of government.

Speaking at the Kenya Industrial Training Institute (KITI) in Nakuru during the closing ceremony of a week-long sensitization workshop for county officers from Kericho, Baringo, Bomet, Narok, Uasin Gishu, Kisii and Nyeri Counties the Principal Secretary emphasized that IFMIS Asset and Inventory module was not just a technical upgrade but also a fundamental shift towards greater accuracy, enhanced safeguarding of public resources and uniform reporting standards across the public sector.

While noting that IFMIS Asset and Inventory module was a centralized system where the National Government and the 47 devolved units could store and retrieve an inventory of their assets, the PS said the national government had already uploaded 90 percent of its assets to the system and regretted that only fourteen counties had embraced the system.

He said at the advent of devolution more than ten years ago assets previously owned by the defunct local authorities were transferred to county governments, with some parcels of land and vehicles changing ownership without surrender of title deeds and log books.

“The system IFMIS Asset and Inventory module will enable Kenyans to know the value of public assets. The register will flag out vehicles and parcels of land without ownership documents so that affected county governments can start processing or applying for duplicate copies of missing title deeds and log books,” he explained.

The main objective of the workshop was to ensure that Public Sector entities safeguard their assets, maintain accurate and up-to-date asset registers, and adopt standardized processes for identifying, recording, disclosing, and reporting assets.

The Principal Secretary said the new module was key to establishing robust asset management structures that promotes prudent management of public resources in addition to enabling counties maintain accurate, real-time asset registers, a critical step in transitioning from manual systems to digital governance.

Mr Odede directed counties to urgently submit the names of their designated IFMIS users for system mapping, fast-track documentation such as title deeds for public assets, and explore innovative revenue-generating strategies, including using public roads for advertising.

“Public assets should not lie dormant; they must be leveraged to generate revenue for service delivery.” Odede stated.

The National Government has already implemented the IFMIS fixed asset module for all state departments in the 2023/24 financial year, with departments uploading their asset data. Counties are now expected to mirror this commitment and align with the broader national vision for fiscal transparency.

Odede also reminded county governments of the legal requirement under the Public Finance Management Act to maintain current and reliable asset registers accessible to both the county treasury and the Auditor-General. With the mandatory shift to accrual-based accounting by 2027, Mr Odede affirmed that the urgency to digitize asset records had never been greater.

Commenting on e-procurement (e-GP), the Principal Secretary said all counties, state departments and agencies were required to finalize and upload their annual procurement plans to the new digital public tenders’ portal before the end of September as the government’s resolve was to ditch the old manual system which the State maintains will curb malpractices including overpricing and payments to non-existent suppliers.

He emphasized that e-procurement was central to curbing corruption, potentially saving taxpayers billions lost annually through manual procurement loopholes.

To sustain these reforms, counties have been urged to allocate dedicated budgets for asset management and staff training.

On the issue of fund disbursement, the Principal Secretary assured that the National Treasury was working tirelessly to upload county budgets into IFMIS, with 30 counties already on boarded. The remaining counties are expected to follow suit to ensure equitable access to national resources.

This digital transformation marks a pivotal moment in Kenya’s journey toward transparent, efficient, and accountable governance, one where every shilling is tracked, every asset accounted for, and every citizen better served.

County governments, he said, were now expected to replicate the same commitment to ensure the new measures are applied across the two levels of government.

He added that all public entities were required to transition from cash to accrual-based accounting by the year 2027, a shift that makes accurate digital asset registers more urgent.