China Eximbank provides RMB 296.1 million government concessional loan for Enterprise Messaging and Collaboration System (EMACS) Project (Linked to Record ID#811)

Project narrative

On March 18, 2011, China Eximbank and the Government of Kenya signed an RMB 308,000,000 government concessional loan (GCL) agreement for the Enterprise Messaging and Collaboration System (EMACS) Project. The face value of the loan was subsequently revised to RMB 296,153,846.15. The loan was provided with the following borrowing terms: a 2% interest rate, a 7 year grace period, and 20 year maturity. It was scheduled for repayment in semi-annual installments from March 21, 2018 to March 21, 2031. The loan was finalized after Chinese Communist Party official Wan Qishan signed an agreement on March 18, 2011, with a Kenyan government counterpart on an enterprise messaging and collaboration system (EMACS) that would aim to set up an e-government platform -- called the Government Shared Service Application (GSSA) -- to improve inter-office collaboration and thereby reduce government operation costs. The borrower made principal repayments worth RMB 11,846,153.80 between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 (Fiscal Year 2020-2021) and RMB 23,692,307.65 between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. The loan’s amount outstanding was RMB 260,615,384.62 as of June 30, 2020, RMB 236,923,076.92 as of June 30, 2021, and RMB 213,230,769.23 as of June 30, 2022. The purpose of this project was to install an Enterprise Messaging and Collaboration System (EMACS) — also known as a Unified Messaging System — encompassing email, SMS, fax, voicemail and video messaging to allow citizens to contact government offices through email and ask questions, seek clarifications and also give comments if necessary. Once implemented, it was envisaged that communication among central Government staff, Ministries, Departments and agencies would be issued with a uniform domain name for their emailing system (gov.ke). Before the project was implemented, many Kenyan government employees were using their personal email addresses to perform government business. Other than the email system which targeted 50,000 users, the Unified Messaging System (EMACS) sought to address human resource issues including management of personnel information as well as training. ZTE Corporation was the contractor responsible for project implementation. The project entered implementation on October 1, 2011, and it was originally scheduled for completion on December 31, 2013. The project was ultimately completed in 2014.