Dr. Fred Matiang'i, recently appointed as the first cabinet secretary(CS) in the Ministry of Information and Communication under Kenya's new constitution, held his inaugural speech to public sector ICT players at the fifth Connected Kenya summit. Matiang'i outlined the ministry's vision which will see him focus on transparency, security, job creation, national brand and tourism, national infrastructure, investment in emerging industries and improving service delivery.
An executive order consolidates all ICT functions under the ministry, including eGovernment, currently under Office of the President and other functions which were under Treasury. The ICT ministry will be working with other ministries to implement IT policies across the board with IT is expected to be an enabler for the other agencies.
Matiang'i expects his ministry to increase government transparency such as through the use of Open Data. The move was also reflected in a presentation given by Mining CS, Najib Balala, who said his Ministry was working to make information on Kenya's mineral fields and blocks open and available to the public.
The industry will also be seeing a number of policies and legislation coming in place. The CS said that the policies and legislation would be arrived at in consultation with sector stakeholders, promising "not to pounce" on the sector with legislation. In the first such move, the ministry would soon convene a stakeholder meeting to discuss the National ICT Master Plan.
He also urged stakeholders to adopt an approach of holding round table consultations with the ministry when dissatisfied with policies, rather than rushing to court and holding back the government from moving forward with policies. This was in reference to the Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) move to court which saw digital migration postponed from January 2013 to September 2013.
On improved service delivery, the CS gave the example of a hospital information system, which he said would mean that a doctor at a referral hospital like Kenyatta National Hospital could access patient information for a patient referred from other hospitals. The government will also take its services to citizens' locality, eliminating the need of citizens having to travel to Nairobi to access such services. This will include the use of County Information Centres which will act as access points for government services in counties.
To get infrastructure closer to the citizen, the government will embark on the National Optic Fiber Backbone Infrastructure 2 (NOFBI2). This he said would go on despite a number of Internet Service Providers laying down their own parallel infrastructure.
A number of ISPs are worried that devolved county governments will use way leaves - issued to firms laying infrastructure - as a revenue cash cow. Matang'i said that his ministry would hold consult with county governments on the same and try to advise them on benefits of infrastructure. However, the central government is not in a position to impose revenue decisions on counties, thus the final say on how much each county charges for way leaves will remain with counties.
The CS said his ministry would also work with county governments on on harmonization and coordination of ICT functions with those of the national government. This will be in a bid to increase efficiency through sharing of services and resources and also to reduce duplication of effort.
Other focus areas will include cyber security, where the CS said that there was a need to ensuring that information and businesses are safeguarded which in turn would boost confidence in information systems. This he said would need investing in developing local capacity in cyber security with the country having had a number of cyber crime incidences recently, including hacking of websites and online impersonation of people.
Dennis Mbuvi
Dennis Mbuvi has been writing at CIO East Africa Magazine and CIO.co.ke since May 2010. His key focus is the use of technology to solve day to day business challenges and product reviews. Mbuvi has been invited to speak at various IT, Telecom and Media events in the region. He was also a keynote speaker at the inaugural Joomla day in Kenya talking on possibilities of the Joomla Content Management System. Mbuvi holds a B.Sc in Computer Science degree from Kenyatta University. He is on Twitter as @denniskioko
