President Joe Biden’s Kenya’s ambassador nominee Meg Whitman has revealed her plan to push for increased business for American tech giants in Kenya.
Ms Whitman, an American billionaire who cut her teeth in California’s Silicon Valley, amassing a Sh575 billion fortune, told American lawmakers the plan that will see the US possibly overturn the dominance of Chinese firms includes linking American tech giants like Facebook, Apple and Alphabet’s Google to local deals.
“Kenya is well-positioned to be an African leader in information technology, telecommunications, and mobile banking and is open to partnering with the United States,” she said recently when she appeared before the US Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy.
“Working with Kenya to assemble the infrastructure, connectivity, and expertise needed to help build the country’s ‘Silicon Savannah’ will be a big part of my mission, and an opportunity I hope numerous US companies will eagerly embrace.”
The revelations by Ms Whitman who previously served as CEO of top US tech giants eBay and Hewlett-Packard underline fresh plans by the Biden administration to topple Chinese dominance in the country’s vibrant ICT sector.
Dubbed ‘Silicon Savannah’, Kenya has emerged as a major player in the fintech space since telecoms operator Safaricom pioneered its M-Pesa mobile money service in 2007 for people without access to the formal banking network.
Microsoft, for instance, recently opened a Sh3 billion office and labs for its premier engineering hub, the African Development Centre (ADC), after three years of operation in Kenya.
And in 2019, Chinese telecoms firm Huawei inked a loan deal to develop the Konza project at a cost of 17.5 billion shillings.
American tech firms like their Chinese peers have been seeking a larger share of the Kenyan market.
Ms Whitman’s planned “techplomacy” which could build up on an earlier position by the US is, however, expected to be an uphill task at a time Chinese firms have entrenched themselves in Kenya.
The US has been urging its European allies and others not to use Huawei, one of Safaricom’s network vendors along with Nokia, citing security concerns.
In 2020, Britain announced it was reversing the decision to let Huawei participate in its 5G network following pressure from the US.
It ordered a ban on the Chinese firm’s equipment from its fifth-generation networks by the end of 2027.
Joe Mucheru, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for ICT, said the US pressure on countries to ditch Huawei in new networks is politically motivated and not based on evidence showing it would enable Chinese spying.
