[kictanet] the budget and ICT

[Vitalis Olunga]

The plan (purchasing of) for computers for schools, if implemented, seems more sustainable than the last year's budget for mobile ICT buses for constituencies. What the constituency leaders should now work for is to ensure the allocation of resources from the CDF to build computer labs in schools where they may be lacking. Many emerging schools may still be lacking computer labs and science labs as of now. One such school where I am the chairman of BGO (Obambo, Siaya) is yet to have a computer lab in place, and has no equipped science lab,  but is it one of the best in the district (both in academic performance and sports).  

Regards


Vitalis


________________________________
From: "ikua at lpakenya.org" <ikua at lpakenya.org>
To: volunga at yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Fri, June 11, 2010 9:20:18 AM
Subject: [kictanet] the budget and ICT

Listers,
The Government will spend 1.3B to buy 300 computers in each of the 210 constituencies. That means that each of the 63,000 computers will cost the taxpayer KSh 20,634/=. This is a very good initiative.

Now, they say that these computers will be assembled by institutions. I just hope this does not mean they will go for clones. They would do much better with branded, refurbished computers. As far as I know, the minister did not mention anything touching on used computers in the budget.

Now then, at this price, there is absolutely no allowance for software purchases. Which is all well as these computers can be loaded with open source software that will give much more value to the investment anyway. So we will be watching keenly to see what kind of deals Microsoft will try to push at the government to include their software in these computers, probably at a ¨small price¨.

The open source community is available and willing to advise the Government on the best way of ensuring that tax payer money is used prudently for the benefit of this country.

Ikua
LPA-Kenya




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