[kictanet] eGov services how much have we spent?

Walubengo J jwalu at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 25 16:08:56 EAT 2012


Whereas I appreciate the problem Dr. Ndemo is trying to resolve, I have reservations about combining eGoverment functions with Ministry of ICT functions (or Ministry of Communication & Transport as our new constitution dictates to call it from March next year). Here's my academic understanding of the role of both entities.

1.  That the Ministry (of "ICT") would be concerned with the high-level Policy, Legislative and Regulatory framework for the ICT industry (i.e. Media, Broadcast, Telecommunications, & IT)  whereas eGovt would be concerned with high-level Policy framework for automation of Government Services.  In other words the Ministry would largely be OUTWARD looking in terms of providing an enabling environment for an efficient ICT market/industry space.

2. ..whereas eGovernment would tend to be INWARD looking in terms of providing e-platforms that would make provisioning of government services more efficient (eVoting, eHealth, eLand Records, eEducation, ePolicing, eJustice, eTax, eRegistrations(birth, death, IDs,etc.  In other words, the focus of eGovernment is to automate ALL government ministries and their functions. If Government was a body corporate, the Secretary eGovernment would be its Chief Information Officer/ICT Director.

Given the above understanding, what would be wrong with putting the eGovt Agency under Ministry of ICT?  You would get the same problem we are experiencing today where technically,  a large portion of the eGovt budget is domesticated at one of the Ministries, Ministry of Finance (treasury). This creates a situation of a line ministry with its "local" focus trying to meet a "global" objective of serving Multiple ministries as per point no. 2 above. The local issues will always take precedence. The situation  is similar to putting the IT Dept under the Finance Dept and hoping the IT Director will have the leeway to serve across the other depts/organisation (it would not happen).

So the decision to put the eGovt under the Office of the President(OP) was as brilliant as it is correct. At the OP level,  one is expected to have the birds-view of the whole government in terms of automation -and perhaps the "umph" to bully those ministries that may lag behind the automation initiatives.  What remains is simply to put the whole ICT budget for government automation at the eGovt Secretariate and things should then click into motion as opposed to now where each Ministry has its own mini-ICT-budget and so you find KRA, IIEBC, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Info and others making progress but in their own little cacoons and schedules while other Ministries (e.g Agriculure, Health, Transport, etc)  watch from a distance.

walu.
 




________________________________
 From: Paul Roy <roykoikai at gmail.com>
To: jwalu at yahoo.com 
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> 
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] eGov services how much have we spent?
 

Dr. Ndemo, I concur with your views below.


On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:53 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:

If we truly need a well coordinated ICT environment then either the Ministry of Information and Communication gets collapsed into e-Government or vice versa.  The roles have become complicated considering the fact that we must now focus on the demand side of Broadband.  It gets even more complicated with GITS in Treasury.
>
>It could make sense having MOIC with Directorates of e-government, cyber security, infrastructure and content.  As a voter you can change the status quo.  There are many successful models of organising the sector.  The Singapore one stands out.
>
>
>Ndemo.
>
>
>
>Sent from my BlackBerry®
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack at gmail.com>
>Sender: "kictanet" <kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:48:04
>To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>Subject: Re: [kictanet] eGov services how much have we spent?
>
>@ Alice good question at one point we had a discussion on this list
>and i requested that we take stock of the implementations made
>unfortunately it may have appeared vindicative at that point, i wonder
>if any of our universities is willing to spearhead some of form of
>research on this or if PS Ndemo can be of help, it is important
>otherwise we might be overtaken by events.
>
>Best Regards
>
>On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:44 PM, Alice Munyua <alice at apc.org> wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> Anyone know how much has been invested by the eGovernment directorate in
>> eGov systems for ministries and other agencies?
>>
>> How much have we as a country spent on eGov services (ICT inside the
>> government and the citizen facing services) so the total might include
>> investments by
>> other ministries etc.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>>
>> Best
>> Alice
>>
>> --
>>
>>
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-- 
"Change is slow and gradual. It requires hardwork, a bit of
luck, a fair amount of self-sacrifice and a lot of patience."

Roy.

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