Hi Barrack,
Thanks for sending the attached draft document.
allow me to expound on the quoted text
"John Walubengo
We talk of infrastructure sharing, when one of the biggest infrastructure project, the National Fiber Optical Cable remains quite underutilized. It may be reaching all counties but how many counties use it beyond accessing government IFMIS services?There seems to be little leveraging on this cable beyond mandatory government services with private
sector largely preferring to duplicate their own fiber. The question is what Policy intervention do we need to increase usage?"
unless we understand the barriers then we will miss the point.
1. Based on various studies globally young and educated (or English Speakers) tend to use internet more frequently, much of the content published on the web is in predominantly in English. how then would we "consume" the internet in areas or regions marginalized education wise? Are we certain that employees of wajir, Muranga & kwale counties just to mention a few randomly can meet this ? yet its evident we only hire the old guard ?
2. Most people if not all agree that the use of internet is good and beneficial to all, Govt, private businesses etc. however skepticism is rife due to its advance effects (read paper trail here) when engaging in unethical practices, unless we clean up the vices to begin with, usage will be shunned.
3. Political Barrier -the political atmosphere in Kenya is perhaps the most responsible for the slowed growth of both Internet access and the telecom infrastructure in general ( lets not forget that politics too has led to uptake in usage on social media ) however outside this there is little to write about. Talk and action has since shifted from the campaign promises to clammed down internet freedoms as well as measures evident in the last published ICT bill.
On the issue of IFMIS its worth to note that it only has three core modules These include: Accounting, Revenue Management and Asset Management. how do the other departments in all counties utilize the available bandwidth and resources ?
I Thank you all for turning the digital divide into digital opportunities.
Regards,
kelvin