[kictanet] MPS SUPPORT E-GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION IN KENYA

[alice]

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 From Balancing Act


MPS SUPPORT E-GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION IN KENYA

Kenya's legislators have surprisingly added their voice in support of 
the transformation to electronic governance in their operations, both 
within parliament and in at the constituency level. During a two-day 
meeting held in Nairobi recently, the members of parliament (MPs) 
discussed various issues related to Kenya Information Society including 
e-government and ICT strategies in the country and what should be the 
role of parliamentarians in the process of implementation and monitoring.

The meeting with theme: "Empowering Kenya's MPs and National Assembly 
staff on Building the country's Knowledge Economy," was organised by the 
UN's Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Canadian e-Policy 
Resource Network (ePolNet). e-PolNet aims at supporting the 
implementation of the African Information Society through the provision 
of various kinds of expertise.

The participants, who included 15 MPs, discussed how ICTs can accelerate 
the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and various 
applications like e-health, e-learning, e-commerce and open platform.

This is in response to the eighth goal of MDGs, declared during the UN's 
Millennium Declaration in 2000, which aims to develop a global 
partnership for development (including a target to make available the 
benefits of ICTs to all the world's inhabitants).
The participants resolved that there is need to take advantage of the 
on-going restructuring of all parliamentary committees in order to have 
ICT either accommodated in one of the committees or set up an 
independent committee on the subject.

In his opening address, Mathioya MP, Joseph Kamotho, said that through 
the use of ICT, governments become less bureaucratic, and more 
efficient. "With deployment of ICTs, several opportunities that corrupt 
public officials normally use for their private gain are eliminated or 
greatly reduced therefore increasing transparency and accountability in 
the management of public resources," said Kamotho.

Kamotho said that governments in Africa must, therefore, invest in ICT 
so that the public is able to monitor the performance of their 
representatives through the establishment of websites where citizens can 
get information about their institution, leaders and the laws made.

On electoral processes, participants gave the example of Zambia where 
the voters register bears the holder's photo to stem vote rigging.
(SOURCE: East African Business Week)