Kenyan ICT-savvy youth accuse State of discriminating against their outsourcing firms

Posted on | juni 6, 2012 | No Comments

Kenyan youthful entrepreneurs in the information, communication and technology sector have taken the government to task over outsourcing of government ICT jobs and services to international players at their expense. Raising the concerns, young entrepreneurs refuted claims that they are inexperienced and lack the technical know-how as often cited by the government when awarding tenders to foreign owned firms.

Reacting to a comment by Eunice Kariuki, head of Marketing at the Kenya ICT Board who alleged that local players lack some vital competencies in specific niches, a Mr Kim said this is a fallacy cited to perpetuate discrimination against local firms.

He said if business continues to be given to foreigners, local business will continue to be sidelined and left undeveloped.

Other local entrepreneurs at the first East Africa Outsourcing Summit being held in Nairobi said called for segmentation of what is to be given to foreigners and what should be reserved to the locals.

In response however, Paul Kukubo, chairman of ICT Board however disputed this saying local markets are sensitive to local needs and are often catered for.

Outsourcing is helping other companies to help other companies in areas they don’t have core competencies.

“At the end of the work done want the best, it is up to the company to be the best company for them to be rewarded tenders. What other local companies have done is partnering with international firms or brought back local expertises based in the West and in the process are building local competencies,” said Kukubo.

Badru Ntege, Chairman of Uganda Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) said although local entrepreneurs usually exhibit high level of competencies, they are usually knocked out on very minute technicalities in the tendering processes, usually done following some international standards.

He advised local entrepreneurs to be keen on tax compliance and organization structures which appears minute details for most local business but warned that it is an area that mostly knocks out most local firms in tendering.

Agreeing to the sentiments, Gilda Odera BPO consultant in the Office of the Prime Minister said the BPO business in the country has shown high enthusiasm among the youth who are opting to begin on their own in large numbers as they have requisite technical know-how.

But they are yet to appreciate the complete picture of the BPO business and have poor caliber of human resource at managerial level.

Ntege agreed and outsourcing business in the region has yet to look at the bigger picture. “Outsourcing models have changed while Africa still operates on the old model that keeps looking for outsourcing business from the West while forgetting the locally available business,” he said.

He said while outsourcing business is promising, Africa is however jumping into a trend that is fading out.

The problem, according to Odera is that governments are holding back on budgets and have not allowed the sector to fully grow at the pace needed with respect to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, a large portion of Kenya’s 1.3 million tetra bytes lies unused as a result of failure by the government to build and enhance the ICT infrastructure across the country, Jullius Opio, head of East and North African Region at the Seacom.

Opio said although Kenya and East African countries have done some modest investment but more needs to be done.

The East African Community for example has invested USD400 million in ICT infrastructure and while Kenya has invested in 5000 km of fibre optic by June 2010.

AUTHOR: Henry Neondo
URL: http:// www.africasciencenews.org
E-MAIL: neondohenry [at] yahoo.com