CA must track and publish universal access projects

Last week, the Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Mr Joe Mucheru, launched the ICT Access Gap Report at a Nairobi hotel.  It highlights the regions of Kenya that do not have communication services, down to the county, constituency and ward levels. 

Some of the highlights indicated that 94.4 per cent of Kenyans have access to the poorer quality 2G signal, while only 60 per cent of the population has access to the better broadband quality 3G Signal.

Worse still, the study found that close to 6 per cent of Kenya’s population has no access to any signal whatsoever.  In other words, close to 2.5 million Kenyans live in areas that do not have any form of communication services, be it voice, internet, radio or television.

In remote areas, where communication signal exists, the signal strength is not strong enough for 50 per cent of local residents, hence the need for residents to climb trees or hills in order to access communication services.

The report may sound depressing but the flip side is that 94 per cent of Kenyans have access to communication signal. To that extent, one can say, we are not doing too badly.

However, our constitution anticipates and expects that all Kenyans have equal access to socio-economic opportunities, including include health, education and security.

A few years ago, the United Nations pushed this idea further and declared that Internet Access is a human right, on same level as the right to life and freedom of expression. Universal access, or provision of communication services to all, should therefore be part and parcel of any government strategy aiming to bring equitable development to the regions of the country.

While a liberal, competitive telecommunication sector is one quick way of ensuring that communication services reach many regions in Kenya, competition only goes to places where there are guaranteed profits or returns on investment.

A private investor or operator will not build a Sh30 million base station in some remote location in Marsabit unless they are assured of not only recovering their investment, but also making profit.

In short an open, liberal telecommunication sector will not bring communication to or marginalised parts of our Kenyan population.

REGULAR PROGRESS REPORTS

Most governments solve this puzzle by setting up a universal service body or council whose main role is to raise funds that could be used to deploy communication services to the zones in private operators are unwilling to invest.

The quickest way to raise the funds is the charge private sector operations a levy of one per cent of their annual revenues, which is then kept in the universal service fund, to be utilised in rolling out of networks to under-served communities.

So far, Sh1.5 billion has been collected and one way of ensuring that this money is channelled to deserving areas is by publishing the ICT Access Gap report.

It would be very unfair if these funds were deployed in regions that are already well developed in terms of communication infrastructure, thus widening, rather than bridging, the regional communication gaps identified in the report.

Worse still, in light of recent corruption revelations in both the public and private sectors, it would be criminal if such funds found uses that have nothing to do with the ICT sector.

To guard against this, the Universal Service Advisory Council must regularly publish the communication projects that have been commissioned, their implementing agent, their location and progress status.

Kenyans must then compare this data against the ICT Access Gap report and make appropriate conclusions as to whether we are indeed closing the communication gap or spending money on something totally different.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Email: [email protected], Twitter: @jwalu