[kictanet] [nairobilug] Draft National ICT policy

Tue Jul 5 20:16:55 EAT 2016

I believe (With all due respect to the CS who I believe is in this list) this is an affront to something else (security maybe?) guised as regulation that inadvertently has a potential negative impact on the sector. 

We all know that world over, Government has played catch up with growth of the sector. Who will examine, monitor, regulate and oversee this on an annual basis? I for one live in a world where there is a lot of “it cant be done that way” coming from the same people who dreadfully will likely end up playing the envisaged roles. 

From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+arebacollins=gmail.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke> on behalf of "Grace Mutung'u (Bomu) via kictanet" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Reply-To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Tuesday, 5 July 2016 7:27 pm
To: Collins Areba <arebacollins at gmail.com>
Cc: "Grace Mutung'u (Bomu)" <nmutungu at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] [nairobilug] Draft National ICT policy

Interesting developments Alex. 

My initial reaction after reading the Bill is, questions questions questions: 

First of all, why would anyone conceive such an idea? To cure what problem? How will it better society as a whole? If indeed there was a problem to be addressed, couldn't the same have been dealt with in the policy process first? Assuming this Bill emanated from the Ministry, why would the Ministry undertake a policy review process and at the same time undertake a legal process to regulate the profession? And why is regulation of ICT professionals not even mentioned in the draft policy? We are always ready to engage and I am shocked to have learnt of the process so far in the day. Or did ICT professionals have a processes the outcome of which is this Bill? 

Speaking of a profession, what is the ICT profession? I see the Bill has attempted a definition at section 2 but isn't ICTs the most dynamic and cross cutting "profession" we have? Was there a study done to support such a disruptive regulation of the profession? Are there other countries that regulate their geeks this much? So what informed this legislation? 

Think of all the young people who eke a living from ICT related businesses. Why would anyone want to subject all these youth, together with those graduating from colleges and universities to one more hurdle before they can start working? Can't we leave it to the market to separate the very good practitioners from the average ones? 

I do not understand the Kenyan obsession with  ever regulating professions. What I know is that it is expensive for parents to perpetually pay fees before their (overgrown) children can finally get employment. It is also an additional cost to businesses as they have to foot the cost of compliance for the various professionals they employ or outsource. 

Finally, what are our legislative priorities in this sector? I would have thought the Data Protection framework is more urgent and maybe a Cyber Security one. While I did not intend to comment on the contents of the Bill, I can't help but notice that one ICT Association of Kenya will have the arduous task of appointing five (out of nine) people to the Council that will regulate professionals (Section 4). Pray tell, who is this association? 

Regards, 

2016-07-05 14:03 GMT+03:00 Alex Watila via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>:

FYI

-----Original Message-----
From: nairobi-gnu at googlegroups.com [mailto:nairobi-gnu at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Tim Schofield
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 11:37 AM
To: nairobi-gnu at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [nairobilug] Draft National ICT policy

This could be a crushing blow to Kenya's ICT industry. If the USA had such a law then so many of their major ICT companies would never have happened. To name but 2, neither Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates gained any formal ICT qualifications, in fact neither of them passed a degree in anything. Several of the leading Linux kernel developers have no formal ICT training.

Tim

On 4 July 2016 at 14:04, Tony White <tony.mzungu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...and *this*:
>
> http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/bills/2016/InformationCo

> mmunicationTechnologyPractitioners_Bill_2016.pdf
>
> Which was introduced in the National Assembly last week, which will
> rquire all ICT 'practitioners' to be licenced (annually!!) and
> registered, with examination of qualifications, and ongoing
> 'training'!!
>
> Phew!!
>
> Tony
>
> On 04/07/2016, Ibrahim Ng'eno <eebrah at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Y'all have seen this[1], yes?
>>
>> [1]
>> http://www.information.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Draft-Nationa
>> l-ICT-Policy-20June2016.pdf
>>
>> -- Ibrahim
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Nairobi GNU/Linux User Group" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
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>> To post to this group, send email to nairobi-gnu at googlegroups.com.
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>
>
> --
> Tony White
>
> --
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