Corporate News
ICT Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i. Photo/FILE
By OKUTTAH MARK
In Summary
- The government aims to deepen mobile penetration from 75.8 per cent to 90 per cent by 2018, enabling it deliver services online to cut down on paper.
Two Cabinet secretaries have started talks aimed at
bringing the cost of smartphones down and spurring the uptake of public
services that will increasingly be delivered online.
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ICT secretary Fred Matiang’i said he was negotiating with
his Treasury counterpart, Henry Rotich, on measures that would
substantially reduce the cost of handsets, accelerating mobile phone
penetration in lower income segments and rural areas.
“As we move to the future, more people will be
accessing information through their handsets than personal computers.
This may not be possible for all as the prices of smartphones are out of
reach of many,” Dr Matiang’i said.
He did not disclose the options that were under
consideration, but added that a study had been agreed upon to inform
measures for reducing the cost of handsets with effect from July next
year.
Budget
“As a government, we are going to do a study that
will inform our decision to bring down the costs. This can only happen
in the next financial year,” Dr Matiang’i told the Business Daily.
The government’s fiscal year runs from July but
the budget for the cycle that starts tomorrow has already been done,
meaning the earliest subscribers can enjoy cheaper smartphones is July
2015.
The government aims to deepen mobile penetration
from 75.8 per cent to 90 per cent by 2018, enabling it deliver services
online to cut down on paper, hands and to curb corruption.
Dr Matiang’i said more affordable handsets would enable end users utilise the broadband capacity that has been installed by telephone companies.
Dr Matiang’i said more affordable handsets would enable end users utilise the broadband capacity that has been installed by telephone companies.
“A strong ICT infrastructure is of no use if people
cannot access it. That is why we are also asking the handset
manufacturers to bring down their prices as they await the government’s
decision,” he added.
Previous attempts by mobile operators to subsidise
high-end handsets have not been fruitful. Telkom Kenya’s Orange bid to
offer network specific iPhones at below market prices in anticipation of
income from data bundles flopped after rogue technicians unlocked the
handsets for use in rival networks.
In the 2012/2013 financial year, the government
reintroduced the 16 per cent Value Added Tax on electronic equipment,
including mobile handsets.
In January Bruce Howe, the outgoing general manager
of Microsoft Mobile Devices ( formerly Nokia), said that the company’s
sales had dropped by 20 per cent in the three months to December
following the imposition of VAT on handsets, saying consumers had turned
to cheaper counterfeit phones.
“We have witnessed a drop of our sales in handsets
by 20 per cent between September and December, coming shortly after the
introduction of VAT in a period where imports of grey phones has
increased,” Mr Howe said in a past interview.
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