[kictanet] link to KC amendment bill

Fri Jul 13 13:16:57 EAT 2007

here is the link to the documents and a  critique follows below

http://africa.rights.apc.org/index.shtml?apc=he_1&x=5077882

Communications ( Amendment ) Bill 2007 

  This section changes the name of  the Act,   introduces new definitions,
  ICT policy development and promulgation , governance of the sector and constitution of the regulator ,  fines  for contravention of  the act 

  Some areas  that warrant attention are
  - policy formulation  in the ICT sector .  ICT stakeholders participated  in the ICT formulation process for the first time in 2006 and now  have a sense of ownership  to that policy.  This is as should be  because the government strategy is to use the private sector to drive growth .  The proposed clause  5 fails to take into account the lessons learned from the policy formulation process  and locks out all other stakeholders in policy formulation
  - governance  - Minister can appoint unlimited number of the board members to the CCK board  because  the operative language for all appointments in clause 6 is .. at least one --- . No advantage can be demonstrated. All other regulators have  an upper limit  on the board members who  range from
  5 to 9  members. Secondly ,  almost all others have no government officers to avoid conflict of interest where government has shareholding in operators and in any case the regulator implements policy promulgated by the government thirdly all the board  appointments  are heavily tilted to the supply side and only one appointee will represent the consumer side  These concerns  were pointed out by KICTANET but  have not  taken on board Muriuki Mureithi 

  Colleagues 

  As you are aware the Kenya Government has at last published the Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill  2007 . The purpose of the Bill published on
  May 17th , 2007 ( world telecommunications day)    is to amend Kenya
  Communications  Act 1998 .   The structure of the bill as a follows; 

  Clause 1 - 14 -  change of name,  new definitions,  ICT policy development and promulgation , governance of the sector and constitution of the regulator ,  fines  for contravention of  the act Clause 15 - introduces  part IVA  on broadcasting services - regulation , licensing and revocation ,  and promotion of local content Clause 16 -29 - enhances penalties of the contravention of the Act, reduce the duration of  notice of a grant of licence, refusal to grant or modification, exclude certain classes in  the notice of grant of licence Clause 30 
  .     introduces part VIA on information technology  - legal recognition
  of electronic communications,  electronic records and electronic transactions , offences
  .     introduces part VIB  universal service fund  - establishment and
  operationalisation
  .     introduces part VIC  Fair competition and equal treatment -
  definition of  dominant operator , investigation of unfair treatment clause  31 introduces  miscellaneous provisions on  National communications secretariat,  establishment of the advisory councils ( content and universal service), action in the occurrence  of an emergency, use of information by an operator, service to CCK etc clause 33 introduces  two schedules 
  .     fourth schedule - operation of advisory councils  - content  and
  advisory 
  .     fifth schedule - transitional provisions  and proposes to repeal
  other acts - Kenya broadcasting act,  penal code, evidence act , part VII electronic records 

  To understand  the implication of the  Bill , you need to  study the Kenya Communications Act 1998  which is being repealed and the Bill itself . Once enacted the governing law will be information and Communications Act and will have far reaching implications  in the sector for the next decade or so.  it is therefore important for stakeholders to study the document. 
   KICTAnet  facilitated a review of the Kenya  Communications Act 1998 last year using the  a draft bill prepared by the Ministry  of Infocom and
  developed a report supported by the stakeholders.  This document   made a
  number of  proposals  which were presented to the Permanent Secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo. Some of the proposals  have been included in the Bill

  As this Bill awaits discussion in parliament , KICTANet wants to facilitate an informed  debate on the Bill ,  these comments are intended to support the evolution of a law to make Kenya effective user of ICT for development .I invite you to read the Kenya Communications Act 1998, the Kenya Communications ( Amendment) Bill 2007 and the proposals by KICTANET as a resource for your comments . The Act and the Bill are available at  the
  government printer   and meanwhile we are making arrangements to scan  have
  all documents  hosted in a website for ease of access by end of Wednesday .
  We start the online discussion on Thursday 7th and will start with    Clause
  1-14  and follow the sequence . In the meantime , we welcome any comments on the structure and the process of online discussion  between today and Wednesday 6th 

  Regards   

  Muriuki Mureithi

      From: Harry Hare [mailto:harry at africanedevelopment.org] 
 Sent: 12 June 2007 12:09
 To: mureithi at summitstrategies.co.ke
 Cc: 'KICTanet Committee'
 Subject: RE: [committee] KC amendment bill

  Dear MM,

  You know how we operate in terms of reading documents! I would propose that you pick out the contentious clauses and sections of the bill and invite debate on the same. This way you would probably generate interest. Some of these clauses were outlined in Mucheru’s email of last week
definition of broadcasting, licensing of domain names etc. My interest however is in section 89-98 of the bill is was partly *borrowed* from the UNCITRAL Model Law on eCommerce of 1998. There are significant changes in the text  that the said law has undergone through the various UNCITRAL Conventions and the UNCITRAL Model Law on eSignatures of 2001. It would be interesting to benchmark that section with the available text. I notice that they have left out some sections of the 1998 model law and this could pose danger in terms of interpretation of the law if it was a quick cut and paste job.

  One of the notable omissions (as far im concerned) for instance is the definition of “electronic signatures” which is found in the model law. The draft bill does recognize electronic signatures but is silent on what they are, this could cause serious interpretation problems. In the model  law, the electronic signatures are defines and goes ahead to specify the validity of electronic signatures
what I don’t understand is why the drafters left out this crucial section of the law.

  Kindest regards
  Harry 

Tel. 254 720 318 925

blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/        

---------------------------------
Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. _______________________________________________
committee mailing list
committee at kictanet.or.ke
http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/committee

Tel. 254 720 318 925

blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/

---------------------------------
Choose the right car based on your needs.  Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20070713/5f4c84be/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
committee mailing list
committee at kictanet.or.ke
http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/committee