Abstract: The world over, e-government is increasingly becoming an important means of delivering public service due to the numerous benefits associated with it. Despite this however, low uptake and use of the available e-government services has been witnessed in many developing countries. This occurrence is being attributed to the fact that existing technology adoption models don’t take into consideration the unique setting of developing countries leading to complete failures or partial successes of e-government projects. To address this problem, the research sought to establish the critical success factors that influence Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector in Kenya to adopt and use e-government services. The study findings are intended to help designers, developers and implementers of e-government projects or G2B platform designers recognize strategic areas of focus that will ensure increased uptake and use of e-government services. To realize the main objective of this study, an exploratory approach using a descriptive survey design was used. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using statistical package for social science (S.P.S.S). From the findings of the survey conducted from a sample of 124 SMEs, usefulness, ease of use, quality of the website, government regulations and incentives, organization competitiveness due to use of e-government services, faster broadband connectivity, affordable connectivity, network security and data protection and e-government awareness/training were found to be the most critical success factors that influence the adoption and use of e-government services by SMEs.

Keywords: E-government, E-government Adoption and Use, E-government Services, Small and Medium Enterprises.