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#KillTheICTBill: Proposed ICT Practitioners Bill 2016 archaic and misinformed


Kenyans and Players in the ICT sector are raising concerns over the proposed The proposed Information and Communication Technology Practitioners Bill 2016.

The Bill is “An ACT of Parliament to provide for the training, registration, licensing, practice and standards of ICT practitioners and for connected purposes.” Expected to be introduced in parliament soon, the bill  seeks to standardize ICT operations in the country.

The bill proposes the establishment of the ICT Practitioners Institute that will be in charge of all the ICT operations in the country. The operations shall include registering and licensing ICT practitioners upon payment of a prescribed fee. What this means is that if passed, members involved in the sector will have to register before being eligible to practise the profession.

The bill goes further to state that to register as an ICT practitioner one must one must be a holder of at least a bachelor’s degree in an ICT related field from a recognized university or is the holder of at least a bachelor’s degree from a recognized university and has relevant ICT experience of at least three years. He or she must also satisfy the Council that he or she is a person of good moral character and a fit and proper person to be registered under this Act.  If the applicant possesses all this he will then be issued with a certificate upon payment of a Kshs.5,000 fee. The certificate will be renewed annually.

We live in a country where ICT is thriving very fast. Young people have embraced new technologies that have seen them come up with innovations to help in this growth. In Kenya right now we have hundreds of startups with young people offering solutions to local problems.  All this innovations will hinder this progress if the proposed ICT bill by the government is adopted.

There is an online petition already on change.org calling on president Uhuru Kenyatta to decline the bill.  The bill can only be described as archaic and aimed at pulling the strides Kenya has made in the ICT sector backwards. If the bill was to be imposed in anywhere in this world, that would mean people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could not have done their work.

Share your thoughts about the bill with us. You can also read the proposed bill HERE.

 

 

 

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