Ruto Reveals Fresh Negotiations With Remotasks After Kenyan Exploits Loophole

President William Ruto on Monday, July 15 announced that fresh negotiations had begun with Remotasks, an international online tasking platform which thousands of Kenyans had relied on for earning an income to support their livelihoods so that operations can resume in the country.

On March 13, 2024, Remotasks which allows users from all walks of life to complete small, online tasks such as image and video labelling, contributing to the training and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, and making money, shut down operations in Kenya which affected thousands of Kenyans who had relied on it to earn a living.

President Ruto was taken through the Official opening of Njoro Technical Training Institute in Nakuru County and interacted with a young woman who managed to exploit a loophole to continue working on the platform to earn money.

Screenshot of a website page showing the unavailability of Remotasks in Kenya. /VIRAL TEA KE

“Kenyans are ready to work on Remotasks, they have seen whatever happened after submitting a dirty task and now they are pleading they can get it back,” she told the President.

She added that through the platform, she was able to use the earnings derived to renovate her mother's house and build for her a modern gate.

President Ruto, in response, revealed that in light of fresh negotiations, he had instructed the Ministry of ICT to negotiate on modalities to have Remotasks resume operations in Kenya.

When the company ceased operations in the country, a section of users claimed that it could have been due to Kenyans submitting substandard work. 

“We need to renegotiate with Remotasks because that is the problem I was informed about,” Ruto remarked.

“I have already instructed the ministry to engage them but they have said we need a framework so that there will be somebody ultimately responsible because now they are dealing with individuals directly, not everybody is responsible."

The President also remarked that Remotasks had been reluctant to resume operations in Kenya due to complications of dealing with individuals who may not be responsible.

“Someone takes work, they don't do it, and yet somebody else was ready to do it,” he explained. 

Ruto also promised to have the pay rate to Kenyans increased on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform after the youth complained that the pay rate was low.

The platform works with different companies to help them form tomorrow's smarter gadgets - from self-driving cars to more intelligent AI systems.

With Remotaskers, the platform helps deliver various outputs to clients that can help them develop their AI projects - this time with the platform's invaluable human input.