Margaret Ndung’u, the ICT Ministry Cabinet Secretary nominee, has her work cut out if her nomination gets the Parliamentary nod. The ministry is crucial for implementing the government's ambitious digitisation agenda.
She has a rich background and expertise in Internet Governance that spans concepts such as internet infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity which are seen as giving her a head start as she takes up control of the ministry.
Though coming with a scarcely-public profile, the resume circulated across social platforms has largely inspire confidence across the industry that is currently in the middle of a revolution powered by heightened developments spurred by global tech giants.
Dr Ndung’u’s professional summary shared by the State House indicates that she graduated with a doctorate in Information Systems from the University of Nairobi in 2011 after bagging a Master’s degree in Management Science from the same institution 11 years earlier.
She earned her Bachelors in Information Science degree from Moi University in 1996.
“Dr Ndung’u played a key role in developing and implementing the African Union data policy framework and also coordinated a six-module online internet governance curriculum used by 30 national and regional schools across Africa,” reads the write-up.
She may have a colourful resume, but is she well-equipped to fix the missteps of her predecessor and better the things he did well?
What lies in her plate as she inherits the reigns of Kenya’s tech ecosystem?
As at the time of his exit last month, the former docket holder Eliud Owalo prided himself as having overseen the rollout of a number of the ministry’s key flagship programmes that included digitalisation of government services, establishment of public Wi-Fi hotspots in retail markets as well as creation of digital jobs.
In his exit scorecard, Mr Owalo also said that the government had rolled out 10,219 kilometres of the targeted 100,000 kilometres of the national fibre optic cable in addition to setting up 274 digital hubs against a target of 1,450 establishments across all Kenya’s administrative wards.
Others include the setting up of a local smartphone assembly plant, establishment of the country’s first virtual university dubbed the Open University of Kenya as well as distribution of 16,804 digital devices to digital hubs and other educational institutions.
Some of the successes have however been confirmed as, in fact, either faulty or ineffective in serving the purposes for which they were established.
A recent spot check by the Business Daily, for instance, established that the free government Wi-Fi hotspots at Nairobi markets were experiencing outages just weeks after launch, dealing a major setback to the ministry’s bid to accelerate Kenya's e-commerce drive.
In his response to the outage concerns raised by traders, the ex-CS heaped the blame on market associations for reneging on their part of the deal to foot recurrent expenditures such as payment of electricity.
In April this year, a joint study by the Centre for International Private Enterprise (Cipe) and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) revealed the locally-assembled smartphones were retailing as high as Sh10,559 contrary to the $40 (Sh5,198 at current conversion rates) promised by the government.
This publication could not independently verify the pronouncements on digital jobs creation and establishment of the digital hubs.
At the height of the youth-led anti-government protests in late June this year, the government was put on the spot after the country experienced internet connectivity disruptions just hours after protesters stormed the Parliament.
The State, however denied any involvement in the outage, with Broadcasting and Telecommunications PS Edward Kisiang’ani blaming on unnamed ‘saboteurs’ and ‘wreckers’ whom he said could have taken advantage of the demonstrations to discredit the government.
On pending business, Dr Ndung’u, if approved, will have to accelerate the laying down of the fibre optic cable if the State is to hit the 100,000 kilometres milestone as at the close of the current administration’s term in August 2027. In the last two years, it has only managed slightly over 10 percent.
The new CS will also be tasked with firming up the re-engineering of the Postal Corporation of Kenya into an e-commerce and logistics hub as well as revitalising the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
