[kictanet] The Size of this Elephant (from my blog)

[Paul Kukubo]

Listers

I thought id share from my latest blog post (www.paulkukubo.co.ke). I have
pasted the entire piece here.

The size of this Elephant.

The recent #140friday twitter and off twitter debate was centred around a
simple and important theme. If the Kenya Government procurement ecosystem
developed a preferential orientation towards local firms, the result would
be that we would develop greater capability. It was argued by some that the
government seemed to indicate an inclination towards foreign big name
firms. Whereas the facts don’t necessarily support the claim, I doubt
anyone would argue with the basic premise of the argument. Local businesses
should benefit from tax based projects.

I offer some discussion points that may guide the continuing discussion.

How do we turn preferential advantage into true national capacity? The
recent procurement of seats from the Prisons department for the national
assembly is a welcome effort by any measure. Without the benefit of detail,
one hopes that the process has created capacity for the Prisons department
to be competitive in furniture making regionally and even become a net
exporter. One hopes they have worked with some of the best furniture
designers locally and created synergies that can be replicated. One hopes
that the low cost of prison labour has also been value added by developing
prisoners who can become great furniture makers once they leave. Use of
materials is important. Have we used woods plastics, composites that wee
sourced from locally sustainable sources. Parliaments are important
national symbols in so many ways. They must represent the best of our
national collective aspiration. How they look and feel is important to our
national psyche. We can draw parrellels here for ICT.
2. Sometimes,even the government does not necessarily know what it does not
know and is often seeking to know what it should know first, before seeking
answers. The whole area of drilling down from service objectives to
architecting an ICT solution can be daunting. For example, we need to have
a simple, easy to use lands information management system so that Kenyans
can search for land titles. One issue that may arise here is that only 30%
of Kenyan land mass has been adjudicated, and surveyed and provided with
title. Your ancestral land may not be under title yet. So how is a lands
system relaxant just yet for you, some may argue. Another issue might be
that the lands ministry collectes substantial revenue in fees and rates
that has to be remitted to the treasury every year. The same department
then has to go back to treasury to seek finance for a new system to support
its operations. Treasury has myriads of pressing priorities. The Kenya ICT
Board proposes a system that allows a private sector partner to provide a
system and recover its revenue from the collected fees. The issue becomes
one of structuring the deal so that the best in class partner can be found
and government is guaranteed of improved revenue whilst having a system
that can carry us to the next generation. Many systems in government can be
delivered like this. The task and the system goes beyond the technology
implementation to change management, capacity and capability development.
Indeed the systems and processes will need to change to accommodate this
need. The partner in question must therefore have capability to underwrite
this massive task.
3. There is great public sensitivity around this subject of local
capability. I choose to use capability instead of capacity, because
capacity may imply the potential given the right mix of circumstances,
whearas capability would mean the collective experience. Telling private
sector that certain capability does not exist locally even when it might be
true, raises huge emotion and rightly so. What does one mean? How dare one?
The intended service outcomes occasioned by the new constitution are huge.
47 counties that must replicate central government capability in the
management of their affairs. The experience with local governments provides
lessons about how comes this can be. Do elected officials make good
administrators?, Do counties as autonomous entities have the structural
capacity to manage their affairs? ICT offers interesting options here. We
can share critical systems across counties reducing the need to duplicate
say financial and HR systems and indeed people. Is the private sector in
the. Idle of this conversation?
4. The past experience on major ICT projects as projected in mainstream
media has been less about the intended service outcomes and more around the
procurement. In the past there may have been substantial capital made out
of over specified, created for self gain ICT projects. This has changed,
but the private sector appetite by some may of have. Obfuscate the issue,
create a project that no one really understands, make money and run is
common in many economies in the world. The onus is on us all to create a
new confidence in this space. A new governance contract which says we ad
committed to right priorities. The private sector especially can do this by
collectively aligning to national priorities.
5. National capacity building is mostly a discussion about what talent I’d
needed from the universities. Some major changes are in the offing here
with both task forces of government education reform. The issue is that the
building local companies that have capability is a continuous process
involving planting the right seeds in school, developing talent, allowing
the right ecosystem to thrive in terms of capital and talent flows,
business and market access, the right local and international partnering,
national incentives systems. And most of all time. Like we say in Swahili,
nothing is better that experience and we must eat salt. Lazma tule chumvi.

The responsibility of Institutions like the Kenya ICT Board therefore is to
ensure we stay in touch with the sector intimately enough to understand
their pressing issues and work with other government agencies to direct
critical concerns as they emerge. Another responsibility is to help the
private sector understand the public sector better in meeting their needs.

Having said that, the public sector pie is very big. And there is much hard
work done to make public efficient and effective. Indeed looking at the
presentation made by the the PS Ministry of Information and Communications,
the ICT Secretary, and various permanent secretaries, government directors
and state corporation CEOs during 4th Connected Kenya Summit recently, one
can attest to this.

A true partnership between public and private sector is emerging through
consultation and this must be encouraged.

The elephant is big and fat and has to be eaten a piece at a time..

Asante


Paul Kukubo
Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board
PO Box 27150 - 00100
Nairobi, Kenya

12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street

Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960
Fax: +254 20 2211962
website: www.ict.go.ke
local content project: www.tandaa.co.ke, www.facebook.com/tandaakenya
twitter:@tandaaKENYA
BPO Project: www. doitinkenya.co.ke
Digital Villages Project: www.pasha.co.ke


personal contacts
_______________

Cell: + 254 717 180001


skype: kukubopaul
googletalk: pkukubo
personal blog: www.paulkukubo.co.ke
personal twitter: @pkukubo


____________________
Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub

Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT,
through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth
for socio economic enrichment
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