[kictanet] The Elephant in the Digital Migration Room?

[Ali Hussein]

Listers

Interesting article by Jaindi Kisero.

Titled 'Digital migration across Africa is all about dubious deals with Chinese'
The gist of the article is that:-

1. StarTimes has basically dominated digital migration contracts in a number of African Countries. (Is this the new Lonrho?)
2. That there are dubious and opaque deals being cut (tell me something new in Africa!)
3. That Africans are giving away their national broadcasting Crown Jewels to the Chinese (More like replacing Western Interests with Chinese ones!)
4. That we shouldn't allow foreign companies to build networks for us. He goes on to quote an American security official:-
"I liked the way a senior American security official, Mr Michael Chertoff defended the action against Huawei. He said: “If you allow a foreign company to build for you the network  on which all data flows, the company will be in a perfect position to populate it with backdoors and vulnerabilities that only the foreign company knows about. And, each time the foreign company upgrades it, that will be an opportunity to install new spyware” .

For once, let’s think about national interest."

Question: When did we ever build our own ICT Infrastructure? If it's not Huawei its Ericcson, IBM or Cisco. 

The truth of the matter is that both sides in this Soap Opera of Digital Migration have erred. They have let egos and vested interests mar a process that should be beneficial to this country. 

Not sure where this country goes from here...

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/-/440808/2627116/-/3rcbqgz/-/index.html

Meanwhile, tune in to second part of Season I

 http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Minister-quizzed-on-digital-migration-row/-/1056/2627216/-/135yu9cz/-/index.html

My take is that we really don't have the interests of this country at heart. Private Sector does a shoddy job of lobbying government for the right policies, government turns a blind eye to 'national interest' and the people look on helplessly like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding road train. 

Ali Hussein

+254 770 906375 / 0713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim
Skype: abu-jomo
LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
Blog: www.alyhussein.com

"I fear the day technology will surpass human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots".  ~ Albert Einstein

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