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{
"id": 1556422,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1556422/?format=api",
"text_counter": 80,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Hon. William Kabogo",
"speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communication and Digital Economy",
"speaker": null,
"content": "we have development partners who have interest in seeing that we stay on top of this business. As you know, Kenya is probably the most advanced country in terms of connectivity in Africa. We do not want to be the first ones in Africa or number one in Africa, but play at the global space. We are doing it in phases. State to stage, which is yearly, what we have done every year. We have already done three phases and we shall provide the details. Hon. Kathuri, it is a responsibility of the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) to ensure connectivity in the whole country. Money is lying idle with the Authority. We should provide how money has been spent. I have given that commitment, that we shall give the entire details. That is why we are deploying fibre and last mile connectivity project. A commitment of Kshs10 billion has been put to ICTA and Kenya Power, the details of which we shall provide. The breakdown for the last five years, as per the request, will be given to Parliament in the next three days. The money cannot be misused. It is guarded by the licensee who are the responsible agency. That is a commitment given to me by the Director General, who is part of the support team I have here. I shall take him to task to be able to give that information to the House. From Senator of Nairobi City, Hon. Sifuna, it is ICTA which is doing it, not Telkom. I know there was a last connectivity to hubs and Government institutions, especially the centres of excellence in constituencies, but Telkom itself has got huge problems where they may not be able to do that last mile. We are now doing it with other providers and the Government is committed to making sure that all 53,000 connections to Government are done probably before the end of next year through fibre. It is also necessary to state that we are working with most companies like the American Towers, to be able to provide part of the 25,000 public Wi-Fi. The most important thing to note is that when I came in, most of the public Wi-Fi, were not working. The reason for this is that the part of sustainability was not considered during inception, but we are now trying to release these public Wi-Fis to young men and women who will man them and probably have a small fee of five shillings or thereabouts, so that they can keep them lit because internet is available. It is just a matter of making sure that they are working. The question on what are we doing in the view of obscene profits and the need to cut costs of connectivity, we have undertaken to lower calling rates and data packages. That negotiation is happening between CAK and the providers, but as I said earlier, we prefer to connect fibre optic, which is Government internet to most of these places, so that it is reasonably priced or almost free for the public to use high speed internet. This, they say, is currently ongoing and in phase four. Mr. Speaker, Sir, in many places in northern Kenya, people climb trees to access communication signals according to Sen. Dullo. We are currently, again, not planning, but laying cables. Where we cannot do because of certain reasons such as security is where we intend to use masts that are already there and use satellite internet provision through Starlink and those that have recently been licensed by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK). The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}