The highly specialised CISCO training programme on bandwidth management and maintenance was undertaken as part of Telkom Kenya’s and Dimension Data’s contract to provide the government with 80Mbps internet bandwidth for the e-Government programme.
The training programme targeted six key government ICT officers in the Directorate of e-Government currently spearheading the programme rollout, Priscilla Maina, Moses Nyabengi, David Marete, Simon Saitoti, Castro Kaluna and Joseph Karugu.
Speaking during a graduation ceremony for the six officers at Telkom Kenya’s head quarters, Telkom Kenya Chief Executive officer Mr Mickael Ghossein described the firm’s two-year tender as a perfect showcase of private-public partnership programme geared at catapulting the Kenya government service delivery points to a paperless e-government framework.
Through the partnership, Ghossein explained that Telkom Kenya and Dimension Data will provide aggregated internet services capacity to the Government of Kenya through the government’s common core network. “With this project, the Kenyan public will very soon be in a position to reach public officers on email, access and download information from government websites at the fastest speeds possible,” Ghossein said. And added: “Government officers will also be in a position to access layered services that are bandwidth intensive such as TelePresence which could potentially see judges and magistrates conducting trials remotely with a higher degree of technical sophistication and improved fidelity of both video and audio.”
During the function graced by the Acting ICT secretary in the Directorate of e-Government, Mr John Sergon, and senior officials from the Kenya ICT Board, Dimension Data Managing Director Rakesh Parbhoo, noted that the project will ensure a secure e-government communication platform, based on a dedicated and private infrastructure, to all government ministries and departments.
Such a platform, Parbhoo explained will guarantee the exchange of information between government offices, thus enabling e-procurement, internet services, SMS services, voice services and electronic project management information systems services among others. “We are proud to be able to use our technologies to enable improved service delivery to citizens, and further drive efficiency across government departments”, he said.
The selection of both Telkom Kenya and Dimension Data was based on a competitive tendering process last year followed by the award of the tender last June. Telkom Kenya was able to deliver 28mbps capacity in October 2009 as a stop gap measure as the Government of Kenya was preparing their network in readiness for the full 80mbps capacity delivery.
The full capacity was subsequently delivered at the end of December last year and is being shared among government ministries through the Government Common Core Network (GCCN). The Government Common Core Network is a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) based network that interconnects the various government ministries and was rolled out and completed in 2009 by Telkom Kenya, the first of its kind in the region.
The provision of 80mbps bandwidth is geared at fully leveraging the current Information communications Technology infrastructure in government offices and related departments which also contributes to improved viability of investments in the same infrastructure.
This service has been supplied and implemented to all the ministries and related departments for exclusive communications use by these offices. The e-government ICT Team was the designated implementation agents of the project through the Kenya ICT Board.
Speaking during the function, acting ICT Secretary in the Directorate of e-government John Sergon said that the service will make a significant contribution to public service delivery through efficient information management and improved communication across and within all government agencies.
He also commended the tireless effort of the of the implementation committee consisting members from ICT Board, Directorate of e-Government, Telkom Kenya and Dimension Data who have manifested exemplary commitment to delivering the project in time.
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Quelle/Source: Ratio Magazine, 16.02.2010
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