[kictanet] kictanet Digest, Vol 70, Issue 201 - Re: Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan general Election

[Kivuva]

To digress kidogo, If there was political goodwill (which I doubt), It
would be great if EACC probed the whole process of procurement at IEBC. It
seems procurement has been a wet area, where powerful crocodiles open their
mouths and swallow.

I don't see why Kenyan elections should be one of the most expensive in the
world per capita, while it's not the most complex.

On 2 April 2013 13:51, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com> wrote:

> Aquinas,
>
> I agree with you 110% about the "human factor" aspect of the issues with
> IEBC. I will take this opportunity to (re) post my piece on the human
> factor which I had shared a couple weeks ago.
>
> ---------------
>
> In #140Friday over the past several days we have been discussing issues
> and challenges that face the implementation of IT systems, with special
> focus on “Public Service” IT systems. This attention has largely been
> triggered by the failure of Kenya’s Independent Election and Boundaries
> Commission (IEBC) Results Transmission System (RTS). Last week #140Friday
> had a face-to-face meeting at the Nailab which brought together a diverse
> group of professionals from various backgrounds to discuss the subject. As
> the group talked about “what went wrong” and “what could have been done
> better” with regards to various Public IT systems one key point that
> consistently came up was the importance of the human factor.
>
>
> [image: godfinger]<http://140friday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/godfinger.jpg>
>
> Most IT system implementations apply project management techniques in
> order to have a higher success rate, better performance management,
> efficient management of time and resources and better communication amongst
> key stakeholders. But research and experience have shown that tools,
> processes and analytics only show about half of the picture, the most
> critical (and least obvious) is what we can call the “human factor”. All
> projects consist of people with needs, wants, desires, issues and time
> constraints. This “human factor” must be addressed in order to ensure
> higher levels of project success.
>
> As more details emerge about the IEBC RTS project it becomes evident that
> the human factor probably contribute to most, if not all of the problems
> that led to the projects failure. There appear to have been a number of
> blunders, both big as well as small which affected the entire process from
> beginning to end. Ranging from personal pride (or should we call it
> obstinacy?) amongst key members of IEBC top management, who turned away
> advice and offers of assistance to address problems that became evident
> weeks and months prior to the election.
>
> The lack of electricity at tallying and polling stations and the failure
> to take appropriate measures to ensure that electronics being used had
> stable power supply points to poor planning and preparation. The locations
> where tallying and polling stations would be located were known many months
> prior to the elections. It would have been a simple task to allocate a team
> the task of ensuring that there was reliable power in each and every room
> that would be used for the election, unfortunately this issue was never
> addressed or came to the fore too late for anything meaningful to be done
> about it. This is a perfect example of an oversight that comes as a result
> of the human factor.
>
> It has been humorously stated that all project failures have 6 phases:
>
>    1. Enthusiasm
>    2. Disillusionment
>    3. Panic
>    4. Search for the guilty
>    5. Punishment of the innocent
>    6. Praise and honors for the non-participants
>
> Interestingly enough, the IEBC RTS projects seems to be going through
> these phases with the entire country acting as judge, jury and executioner.
> While all the details are still not in the public domain, it is safe to say
> that this particular project shall go down in the annals of Kenyan ICT
> history as a classic example of how *NOT* to do things.
>
> Some recommendations on how to address human factor challenges (from Kim
> Resch “Using The Human Factor To Launch Products”)
>
> *Management Buy-In*
>
>    1. The larger the project the more management support is needed
>    2. Get and keep management involved in the right projects at the right
>    time – don’t wear out your welcome
>    3. First thing, gain the clear understanding of the manager’s highest
>    level goals and desires
>    4. On a regular basis meet one-on-one with management to up-date and
>    ask for support
>    5. Meet with, face-to-face, each manager of each person assigned to
>    the project – gain commitment
>    6. When priorities shift re-commit with all levels of management
>    7. Gain outward signs of approval & support from management
>
> *Team Dynamics*
>
>    1. Get to know each person on your team, including personal likes,
>    interests, etc. & share about yourself too
>    2. Get buy-in – sell hard when necessary
>    3. Trust the people on your team and show them you trust them
>    4. Give them a chance to shine and get recognition – ‘relinquishing
>    power’
>    5. Define their strengths & weaknesses
>    6. Spend time explaining the importance of the project – to the bigger
>    picture
>    7. Write thank-you notes and take time to have a snack/lunch with the
>    team
>    8. Go out of your way to care and be personal
>    9. Never let family or the individual come second
>    10. And at the same time, push them through example and challenge them
>    beyond what they think they can do
>
> *Essential Communications*
>
>    1. After leadership the second most important role you will play
>    2. Watch for issues, build-up and possible explosions – only way to
>    know is via talking, seeing and sharing
>    3. E-mail is the scourge of proper and effective communications –
>    great for documentation, horrible for getting the right out-come
>    4. Communicate often with the key team members and (on larger or fast
>    projects, do so every day), with the larger circle of members at minimum
>    weekly
>    5. Utilize all forms of communications
>    6. Involve upper management in formal & relaxed moments
>    7. Restate the mission, goals, business impact, etc.
>    8. At start of program develop a scope document that includes the
>    business value and the ‘why it is important’
>    9. Handwrite thank-you notes along the way
>
> *Convert Mountains into Molehills*
>
>    1. Obstacle remover
>    2. Work the team to bring expectations into alignment
>    3. Shut down gossip and trash-talk
>    4. Address problems head on – first to the immediate person then go up
>    the chain
>    5. Clarify, define and bring into prospective
>    6. Feel the pain, but move beyond to the result – generate a positive
>    outcome
>    7. When a person is blocking the project’s success, after attempts to
>    correct the behavior, have them removed – nothing and no one is untouchable
>    8. Keep the mission visible and the end result alive
>    9. Don’t let scope creep & ‘fix all the ills of the business’, change
>    the project’s desired result
>
>  *Keep spirits up*
>
>    1. Utilize recognition & incentives
>    2. Non-cash rewards are better
>    3. Both team and individual rewards & recognition
>    4. Reward for each milestone or important result
>    5. Say thank you, in writing and in group settings
>    6. Hold up performers
>    7. Hold a kick-off meeting followed up with an activity
>    8. Reward positive behaviors openly, handle poor behaviors privately
>    and one-on-one (use as a learning experience)
>    9. Get management to ‘stop by’ performing individuals’ cubes/offices
>    or meetings to say ‘I heard and wanted to say…’
>    10. Create performance legends & stories
>    11. The positive spirit begins with you
>
> *Velocity & Vision*
>
>    1. Determine upfront how much or little the specific project requires
>    – the tools, tracking and formal processes
>    2. Create a vision the team can believe in, including how fast and why
>    3. Create a sense of urgency and action (if it can be done now then do
>    it)
>    4. Important means speed – velocity only comes with a clear
>    understanding of where you started and where you are going
>    5. Make it real, make it tangible
>    6. The pace of the leader sets the pace of the pack!
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Aquinas Wasike <aquinasw at lantech.co.ke>wrote:
>
>>  Forgive me for the long post that I am just about to make!
>>
>> I would like to chip in with my comments to the on-going discussion about
>> IEBC and Technology.
>>
>> The IEBC shortfalls were not about technology. It was about people and
>> process and the risk mitigations put around the whole effort!
>>
>> Some of you are aware that we were mentioned several times as a player
>> around the technology failures. This is not to placate our position. We had
>> no position to defend as our systems were fully and properly delivered and
>> performed 100% to expectation. We are very proud of our work at IEBC.
>>
>> Yes, it was a massive IS (Information Systems) effort where literary
>> tonnes of cash (yes, I say this with some form of sarcasm as we did not
>> need to spend in the manner we did) was availed. The fiasco surrounding the
>> BVR voter registration procurement (Biometric & AFIS – to avoid double
>> registration/dead voters) has been well documented and written about. Our
>> previous elections (2007) were marred by a resultant election violence
>> catalysed by a claimed election fraud/theft that is said to have been
>> caused by claims that the then manual voter registration system was porous
>> and may have been manipulated allowing double registration in some areas
>> and even ballot box stuffing in many others. So all this spending was in an
>> attempt to avoid a repeat of this.
>>
>> On 9th November 2012 in an email conversation with some colleagues who I
>> know are also active on this list I said and I quote *“…….I must say
>> that IEBC now remains the single largest threat to the security and safety
>> of Kenya in the way they are managing this very sensitive matter. This is
>> my personal opinion; it is not the opinion of LANTech (my employer) which
>> is currently engaged in a business transaction with IEBC. I would say very
>> frankly that their level of preparedness is appalling!”* Still earlier
>> on, on 30th October I had expressed the very same similar sentiments where
>> I said, *“…..I wonder whether IEBC will not use this as an excuse to
>> scuttle any hope for the Kenyan Diaspora to vote. I must say that the
>> level/state of preparedness by IEBC is shocking to say the least. It is a
>> classic case of how not to! Some of us who are doing some work there are
>> just shocked at how things have been left to the very last minute and with
>> this you can be sure that a lot of stuff will fall through their fingers.
>> We pray for Mother Kenya!”**. *As it happens both my predictions have
>> come to pass.
>>
>> There numerous goofs were mostly self-inflicted, few others quite
>> external and even others very expected on a project of this nature in which
>> you will expect that they will anticipate and take corrective action or
>> plan for risk mitigation. Let us say that the main and biggest
>> self-inflicted risk was procuring the systems very late into the calendar
>> of the already known election date (I will not also go into the details of
>> vested interests which was well reported about).
>>
>> For example the BVR Kit should have been procured and delivered by May
>> 2012 to allow for 90days voter registration period. In the end the voter
>> registration was only conducted in 30days deep into the election calendar
>> and other milestones on the calendar were equally reduced. Even then
>> Kenyans were very eager and more than 14.5m of us registered to vote! And
>> we must do away with this practise of registration for elections when they
>> are nigh.
>>
>> Voter registrations should be a continuous exercise (as our new
>> constitution states) and even then anybody with an ID, having registered by
>> the Registrar of Persons (as an adult Kenyan) should by default have a
>> right to vote. The registration of persons should not be any business of
>> IEBC as you will see in my other discussion that I will start asking for
>> the Ministry of Immigration to stop the current tender for the AFIS/Civil
>> Registration systems and instead take over the systems just newly procured
>> by IEBC.
>>
>> The IEBC enjoyed massive goodwill both locally and multi-lateral partners
>> who ensured that it had all the resources (fiscal) and otherwise to run the
>> elections. This is probably where the expectations were not matched evenly
>> with the delivery (call it reality). It may seem that the IEBC was lacking
>> in that other resource that may not have been anticipated or planned i.e.
>> its human resource capacity to deliver on the expectations. The 2013
>> Elections were the most complicated ever with 6 different seats being
>> voted/vied for at the same time. This was akin to running six different
>> elections in parallel. This is a huge logistical exercise by any measure!
>> Thus the decision and rightly so to use technology as an enabler to deliver
>> the election.
>>
>> If we analyse the Technology dimension, the ICT infrastructure at IEBC
>> was discredited and archaic having been largely inherited from the old ECK.
>> No clean voter database existed. It had to be recreated afresh with a fresh
>> voter registration exercise, the reason for procuring the BVR voter
>> registration system (worth close to Kshs. 9b as reported in some circles –
>> US$105m).
>>
>> Then the EVID system (Electronic Voter Identification System/poll-books)
>> and other technology that went largely un-reported. Even though the EVID
>> system was supposed to be leading-edge, in reality it isn’t. This was
>> supposed to identify you at the polling station and then immediately update
>> the database that you have indeed accessed your polling station where you
>> registered/are supposed to vote and that you have cast your ballot. This
>> was the “closest” we would come to electronic voting (as envisaged by the
>> Kriegler commission) which was not possible because of the reality of the
>> communication infrastructure challenge and the general level of literacy of
>> the voting population which may not be at a high enough level to allow for
>> a seamless electronic election voting. As we are all aware, these
>> poll-books failed massively, sinking close to $40m down the drain!
>>
>> I would say that the risk mitigation applied was in the form of manual
>> forms 34 & 36 that we are now familiar with.
>>
>> Talking about the process dimension of the election, IEBC would have had
>> to apply a mix of in-house and external persons to conduct the elections
>> including taking the route of sub-contracting and outsourcing to conduct
>> most of its core mandate i.e. conducting elections. Internally it needed to
>> have the requisite skilled people to manage the out-source/sub-contract
>> operations while ensuring contracted services are delivered. This would be
>> risk transference at work.
>>
>> An election is a massive exercise in its very nature. IEBC knew that at
>> the election period itself, it would require close to 400,000 people
>> working for the few days to the run-up to the elections and few days after
>> (say a week). This is a huge logistical process and part of the discussion
>> would have been to allow the BVR and EVID equipment suppliers to also
>> recruit and train the head count that will be used for this period as part
>> of the ways of managing this process. This would have probably ensured that
>> these gadgets worked and not the excuses that the batteries failed or
>> password were forgotten.
>>
>> From the above, we see that the mitigation actions that should have been
>> taken would not only be qualitative but also quantitative. A mix of
>> technical and social actions should have been deployed. The human factor
>> “failed” this election and one would say that the technology integration to
>> the whole election exercise failed except the case of the BVR Voter
>> registration which mercifully went well/successfully and only due to the
>> Kenyans own desire to register and not necessarily that the IEBC did
>> anything spectacular about it (as we have seen the voter registration
>> systems were delivered very late in the day!).
>>
>> So then we see the need for a hybridisation of not only the management
>> practise but also the actions taken to mitigate the risks.
>>
>> The human element in the whole exercise failed to adequately weld
>> together all the various elements to deliver a flawless election. We are
>> now discussing that technology failed when it is actually that the people
>> tasked with ensuring the integration of all the systems together largely
>> did not make this happen.
>>
>> *What I am now concerned about is what we do with this huge investment
>> in information technology (close to US$ 150m in value). This is huge spend.
>> We must find a way in which this investment must be deployed in other
>> departments e.g. the Civil Registration Bureau for a complete new and clean
>> civilian database and hence issuance of a new 3rd generation ID card that
>> should ideally serve as your voter’s card at any time that an election may
>> be called.*
>>
>> I hope that this has not been a boring post.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Aquinas
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> Aquinas Wasike
>> Chief Executive Officer
>>
>> LANTech (Africa) Limited
>> PO Box 6384 - 00200
>> 11th Floor, Pension Towers
>> Loita Street
>> Nairobi, Kenya
>>
>> Mobile: +254 722 511120
>> DL :    +254 20 2245476
>> Fax :   +254 20 316747
>>
>> Email: aquinasw at lantech.co.ke
>> Website: www.lantech.co.ke
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: kictanet [
>> mailto:kictanet-bounces+aquinasw=lantech.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke<kictanet-bounces+aquinasw=lantech.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>]
>> On Behalf Of kictanet-request at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>> Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 7:05 PM
>> To: Aquinas Wasike
>> Subject: kictanet Digest, Vol 70, Issue 201
>>
>> Send kictanet mailing list submissions to
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: Opinion Technology, transparency,     and the Kenyan general
>>       election of 2013 (Jotham Kilimo Mwale)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:03:49 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: Jotham Kilimo Mwale <jokilimo at yahoo.com>
>> To: "S.M. Muraya" <murigi.muraya at gmail.com>
>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency,       and the
>>         Kenyan general election of 2013
>> Message-ID:
>>         <1364745829.35382.YahooMailNeo at web122004.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> @Brian - well said in your response to @Walu and also in the article.
>> Ours is a manual voting system, and in 2013 some processes (voter
>> registration and identification, results transmission and tallying) were
>> enhanced (not replaced) by deploying technology. This technology failed
>> (voter identification and RTS) on voting day thus removing the enhancement
>> but, in my opinion, not affecting the integrity of the manual voting
>> system. Others saw it differently, hence the petitions. Detailed Supreme
>> Court judgement may shed light on this.
>>
>> @ Muraya - the high voter turn out in 2013 can be attributed to several
>> factors, chief among them that it was a fresh register compiled only 3
>> months to the election. Chances are the people who registered intended to
>> vote and even if one accounts for natural attrition, chances of well over
>> 90% turnout should not raise any eyebrows. This was not the situation in
>> 2002, 2007 and 2010 when an old register was updated but the dead over the
>> years were never/rarely removed.
>> ?
>> Jotham?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>  From: S.M. Muraya <murigi.muraya at gmail.com>
>> To: jokilimo at yahoo.com
>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 3:56 PM
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the Kenyan
>> general election of 2013
>>
>>
>>
>> Even as conspiracy theories (continue to) abound, let us note age old
>> wisdom stating:
>>
>> "Every matter/case must be established by two or three witnesses"
>>
>> Over 3 elections/witnesses exist as to how many votes were probably cast
>> on March 4th, 2013.
>>
>> Looking at Nairobi votes, (i) the presidential, (ii) governor and (iii)
>> senator -- total votes cast were?over 1.3 million (over 72% voter turnout)
>> in all 3 races.
>>
>> If voter turnout in Nairobi has averaged 50% in past elections (2002,
>> 2007, 2010 - referendum), this was an over 40% increase....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> @Walu
>> >
>> >A forced marriage is very different from a marriage between consenting
>> partners. I venture to say that the "marriage" between Kibaki and Raila was
>> forced.
>> >
>> >The "marriages" in this election were consensual. Night and day
>> difference.
>> >
>> >As for the RTS system - I beg to differ. Not matter how much we may WANT
>> the electronic system to have been there as a parallel verification system
>> the truth (and the fact) is that RTS was merely for transmission of
>> PROVISIONAL results (as clearly indicated in practically all official
>> specifications for the RTS). As per the Supreme Court the real vote was the
>> paper ballot count along with the various checks and balances.
>> >
>> >Nevertheless your reasoning is spot on in terms of one of the ways in
>> which technology *can* be used to enhance the vote. Hopefully if anything
>> comes out of this dialogue, some of these points will be included in the
>> design of future systems intended to support the election.
>> >
>> >
>> >Best regards,
>> >
>> >
>> >Brian
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >@Brian,
>> >>
>> >>Coalition Govt will be with us forever.?? Our current govt, Jubilee is
>> a coalition between TNA and URP.? So expect "nusu-mkate" politics to be
>> with us for a while and it is not necessarily a bad thing.? Even UK,
>> Germany, Israel and many other mature democracies have these types of
>> governments.? Perhaps we just need to learn how to manage them.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>@Rigia,
>> >>Nice piece on the technology and election processes.? But it misses one
>> fundamental that most analysts, legal counsel and I dare say the Supreme
>> court may have missed.? The fact that the Results Transmission System (RTS)
>> is not just useful in "speeding-up" the announcement of results but its
>> fundamental and more useful role is by acting as a PARALLEL verification
>> mechanism.?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>What this means is that once the tallying has been done and announced
>> at the LOCAL Polling station, those very (Presidential) results are
>> supposed to be instantly transmitted to the NATIONAL Level and thereof made
>> public to the wider national community. In essence the "local" data is no
>> longer just local but becomes "global", and any attempt to modify the same
>> at a later stage,? by way of agreement, error or outright corruption will
>> require a good amount of explanation. This is because what was Transmitted
>> and displayed electronically is expected to match the physical election
>> Forms 34 as they arrive at the National level, 2-3days later.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Remember, just because all agents did sign the election documents
>> >>(Form34) maybe good but it is not sufficient evidence that what was
>> >>countersigned is indeed what was announced (each signatures has a
>> >>price?).? It is much stronger and a better? check if what has been
>> >>countersigned manually is cross-checked against another parallel
>> >>system - the Results Transmission System. One may then ask, what if
>> >>the RTS is also compromised? i.e. Agents collude with the Returning
>> >>Officer to sends fictitious results instanteneously over the RTS??
>> >>This is unlikely to happen because as our outgoing President, Mwai
>> >>Kibaki once rightly put it, you need Intelligence to rig elections
>> >>:-).? Most of this "intelligence" only occurs after a period of time
>> >>(1-2-3days) later when 60-70-80% of the results at various polling
>> >>stations is locally? known? but remains globally or nationally unkown
>> >>(awaiting physical arrival of Form36) . It will not be very
>> >>intelligeny to start
>>  rigging an election, when you are yet to gather the general
>> trend(intelligence) of the results since one can easily over-rig and get
>> caught :-). So you can bet your salary that instantly transmitted results
>> are likely to be more reliable/correct results as compared to the physical
>> ones that will arrive 3days later.?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Put differently "instantaneous" transmission of? results at the
>> >>polling stations distributes widely what is otherwise "local"
>> >>knowledge and DENIES potential election riggers the opportunity and
>> >>the time to leverage on this type of intelligence. The Results
>> >>Transmission System ensures that no single candidate enjoys the
>> >>monopoly of local knowledge (Results at? Polling Station that are not
>> >>yet in the national public domain) and thus eliminates the temptation
>> >>to abuse the same to their advantage. Knowledge is indeed power and
>> >>local knowledge is even more powerful - I should add.? If politician's
>> >>Agents knew that Polling results were no longer "local" but widely
>> >>known across the country - courtesy of the instantaneous Results
>> >>Transmission System - then the temptation to sign against
>> >>fictitious/edited result figures will be greatly reduced.? Indeed this
>> >>fact alone, will diminish any Politician's desire to even begin to
>> >>compromise Agents at the Polling
>>  station since it is futile to do so upon knowing that the Results are
>> already "out and about" in the public domain.?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>So my prayer for 2017/18 is that as an ICT community, we must ask and
>> indeed demand that IEBC ensures that as a minimum tech-input to the
>> elections, the Results Transmission System must work.?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Lets Enjoy our Easter and the Jubilee years ahead.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>walu.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>________________________________
>> >> From: Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
>> >>To: jwalu at yahoo.com p
>> >>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>> >>Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 11:11 PM
>> >>
>> >>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
>> >>Kenyan general election of 2013
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Since I have developed a reputation for saying the unpopular things
>> that people think but are either too shy or too conflicted to talk about I
>> will make a simple point that I have observed over the past few years.
>> >>
>> >>While the coalition government was lauded as a reasonable way of
>> dealing with the electoral debacle that we faced in 2007, the truth is that
>> for the past 5 years there have been some very strange and unusual dynamics
>> at work in the operations and makeup of Government departments and
>> agencies. A massive plus has been the much higher levels of scrutiny and
>> accountability. But I would like to suggest that the benefits have been
>> outweighed by the disadvantages.
>> >>
>> >>A good example, and one that I would like to use here is the IEBC - it
>> is no secret that the two principals had to "share out" the various
>> positions that needed to be filled both a commissioner as well as senior
>> management. This has been the pattern for almost all appointments and
>> recruiting exercises across Government.
>> >>
>> >>I venture to say that this approach has been counterproductive and
>> aside from yielding teams that can work together in planning, policy,
>> strategy and implementation within their departments/agencies has yielded a
>> replica of the competitive, antagonistic, selfish and almost vindictive
>> tension that has been evident between the two principals since day one.
>> >>
>> >>It is my sincere hope that the next government will be marked by a
>> complete change in attitude, with more of a genuine team-based dynamic in
>> terms of setting and achieving organizational goals.
>> >>
>> >>My two cents,
>> >>
>> >>Brian
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Dick Omondi <
>> Dick.Omondi at ke.airtel.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>Now that we have a court decision that clears the matter of the
>> presidency,  perhaps it is now time to remove the emotions of the decision,
>> turn away from politics and get down to the core issues in real
>> institutional management and those surrounding the processes and the people
>> around the IEBC lest we sit back and get through another four years and put
>> together another unit in the last year of the 5 and go back to the same
>> merry go round.
>> >>>________________________________
>> >>> From: kictanet
>> >>>To: Dick Omondi
>> >>>Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
>> >>>Sent: Sat Mar 30 21:40:14 2013
>> >>>
>> >>>Subject: Re: [kictanet] Opinion Technology, transparency, and the
>> >>>Kenyan general election of 2013
>> >>>
>> >>>Thank you Ali. I appreciate your comments. Shukran.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke>
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>Wariga
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the read. I want to however object to
>> >>>>the words:-
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>'...the election results show that technology has failed them.'
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>I humbly submit that what failed us in this case is a mix of partisan
>> politicking, a knack for jostling to see how each proponent could
>> manipulate the process for their own benefit and lastly the failure of the
>> IEBC leadership to accept and tell Kenyans to our faces that the most
>> expensive technology ever bought for elections in Kenya (and Probably
>> Africa) was designed to fail before it landed in the country.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>I would replace the sentence '...the election results show that
>> >>>>technology has failed them.' with the sentence
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>'...the election results show that leadership has failed them.'
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>The saving grace is that we have a sober Supreme Court and we thank
>> God for them.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>Ali Hussein
>> >>>>CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd
>> >>>>Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>+254 773/713 601113
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb
>> >>>>
>> >>>>Sent from my iPad
>> >>>>
>> >>>>On Mar 29, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Warigia Bowman <warigia at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>I thought you guys might enjoy this piece.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332913551936530
>> >>>>>8.html
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>Take a look, and tell me what you think. :-)
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>Warigia
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>_______________________________________________
>> >>>>>
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>> >>>>>kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
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>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>Unsubscribe or change your options at
>> >>>>>https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhus
>> >>>>>sein.com
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder
>> platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy
>> and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
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>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>--
>> >>>
>> >>>Dr. Warigia Bowman
>> >>>Assistant Professor?
>> >>>Clinton School of Public Service
>> >>>University of Arkansas
>> >>>wbowman at clintonschool.uasys.edu
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> >>>View my research on my SSRN Author page:
>> >>>http://ssrn.com/author=1479660
>> >>>--------------------------------------------------
>> >>>
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>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
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>> *****************************************
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>> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
>> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
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