Ruto US tour: President says Ksh.6B CCI call centre to employ 20,000 Kenyans

President William Ruto has praised CCI Global’s new Ksh.6.6 billion ($50 million) call centre in Tatu City, Kiambu County, during his United States tour.

The president on May 10 opened the business process outsourcing (BPO) firm’s five-storey facility billed as the country’s largest call centre, set to employ 5,000 Kenyans in the short term.

At a forum with Kenyans living in the U.S. in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, Ruto said the centre will offer Kenyans online jobs, which he called a “real” opportunity ground as unemployment continues to bite.

“The digital jobs space is what can give us opportunities for Kenyans to work. Last week – I’m not talking about last year or last month – I was in Ruiru commissioning a DPO that is going to hire 5,000 Kenyans,” he said.

“They are going to do online jobs at that BPO by CCI has JetBlue and ATAP, all American companies. Kenyans will be working from Ruiru for American companies.”

During the CCI call centre launch, the company announced the creation of a second building at Tatu City, with the commitment to double CCI Kenya’s call centre workforce to 10,000.

The firm said the jobs span across call centre agents to managerial roles.

Ruto on Monday further doubled the figure, saying CCI will employ 20,000 Kenyans by 2026.

“CCI in the next two years will be hiring 20,000 Kenyans. We are working with many of those companies to create such spaces not only in Ruiru but other Kenyan towns,” he said.

CCI Global serves top companies from North America, the U.K., Australia, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, outsourcing their business processes to Africa, mainly customer service divisions.

The company says it currently employs over 15,000 staff serving over 80 companies across telecoms, media, mobile technology, financial services, hospitality, and healthcare.

President Ruto has since taking office in September 2022 touted the digital economy as a major employment creation avenue and also a revenue earner for his government.

Following his U.S. roadshow last year which was meant to highlight the business and investment potential in Kenya's booming tech sector, he sparked debate after saying he had struck an agreement with Apple and other top Silicon Valley names, which would see these corporations give Kenyans hundreds of thousands of so-called digital jobs.

“I visited Google, Intel and Apple. All these companies are looking for online workers,” said Ruto then.

Without getting into specifics of which corporation promised to employ what number of workers, the president at the time added; “They want us to give them 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000 workers out of the Kenyan youth.”

He recently said his government seeks to create a million ‘digital jobs’ in five years.