[kictanet] Holding our Leaders Accountable

[Odhiambo WASHINGTON]

* On 24/05/07 13:42 +0300, Judy Okite wrote:
| Chelimo,
| 
| The future is ICT and ICT is the future....its not something that you pray
| it goes away........Is it too difficult to be humble/open minded to  say 'Am
| not all that knowledgeable,in this arena,but I would be more confortable
| with a discussion,since we are both going to be learning from each
| other,than an interview!!'
| In the next 7 months,one of these guys is gonig to be the President of
| Kenya....so as the ICT sector, what are we looking at in the next 5 years,if
| they do not want to mention it or as U said its not of importance?

From where I sit, I've always thought that politicians don't run the 
country, but rather the advisors (the bureaucrats). The bureaucrats
work on the policy papers, and the implementation! Let's look at it this 
way: Whenever the country's CEO reshuffles the cabinet, does s/he take 
into consideration any qualifications the ministers posses, as to put 
them in charge of some ministry? The answer is NO. It's all political 
expediency. It's with this in mind that I still support Chelimo. 
Politicians will only go for something that will yield political mileage 
- aka votes.
I do take cognizance of the fact that the buck stops with the CEO, but I 
also believe, as a matter of fact, that whatever speeches I hear from 
CEO or his horde of lieutenants are normally not from their minds but 
those of the bureaucrats. I recently heard that Kenya, Malaysia and 
S.Korea were economic age-mates at some point. What I did not hear are 
the finer details of what was being used in the comparison, and even if 
there was any that I missed, I seriously doubt it would boil down to 
ICT. It would be "general economy".

I may be losing course, but I still believe that it is not the country's 
CEO who sits down to lay down the fine details of the ingredients that
will make the economy grow, if not jump.

There must be a different way of approaching this, which is different 
than calling the aspirants of that office to a "small" (sic!) debate on 
ICT:-)

I am tempted to ask Dr. Ndemo about the levels at which such decisions 
as facilitating ICT growth are made in govt., and at what juncture. Is
the president the chief decision maker or just the person 
whose "goodwill" makes things move?

Did we invite H.E. The President for the debate as well, given he's one 
of the aspirants? Did he confirm attendance?
I'd yell at the top of my voice if he did, and failed to turn up, 
because I know it is possible, within the next 6 months, for him to put 
in place policies towards growing the ICT field, which we can then use 
to gauge the performance of future leaders.


        cheers
       - wash 
+----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
Odhiambo Washington            		. WANANCHI ONLINE LTD (Nairobi, KE)  |
wash () WANANCHI ! com			. 1ere Etage, Loita Hse, Loita St.,  |
GSM: (+254) 722 743 223			. # 10286, 00100 NAIROBI             |
GSM: (+254) 733 744 121			. (+254) 020 313 985 - 9             |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------------------+
"Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!"  
						 --from a /. post
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 2243 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20070524/cb976d3c/attachment.bin>