Public to get parliamentary debates via mobile phone and Internet

All questions raised in Parliament by MPs and responded to by ministers will be placed where constituents can monitor them.

In a programme launched on Wednesday by the National Council for Law Reporting — Kenya Law Reports (KLR) and all parliament proceedings in the Hansard will be relayed to www.kenyalaw.org

In the programme KLR has partnered with Kenya National Assembly, Kenya Information Communication (ICT) Board and Google search engine to digitise more than 1,750 editions of parliamentary debates from 50 years ago.

What would now be documented are questions which have been raised by electorate through their MPs and responded to by respective ministers.

Some MPs have been deceiving their constituents that they raised an issue in the House while in the real sense, they haven’t.

Information Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo said for the society to move forward, information from the government had to move faster. And the only way such information could move faster was to be digitalised.

“Our aspiration is to move from e-government to a knowledgeable society and achieve more development by having a faster relay of information digitally,” Mr Ndemo said.

The PS said the move would make MPs more accountable and added that concealing information from the public had dented the government’s image.

“The digitilisation will make the government more transparent and people will in the long run trust the State,” Mr Ndemo said.

Getting content

He said the biggest problem was getting content after the programme had been launched, but their statistics had indicated that some government departments were relaying more information for the public.

He urged government departments to relay information expeditiously to be posted to the website.

“Our biggest problem was not infrastructure but content development. Africa contributes two per cent only for Internet information out of a population of about one billion people,” Mr Ndemo said.

Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza who was the chief guest hailed the move saying Kenya is now among the leading in Africa in providing information online to its people.

“I am sure you will agree with me that the scope of the content and the ease with which it can be searched and cross-referenced makes Kenya the leading country in Africa in providing online information,” she said.

She said the fulfilment of the programme is in line with the new constitution where Kenyans have a right to information.

“Today’s event is a fulfilment of the citizen’s right to access public information, a right introduced by the new constitution of Kenya promulgated in August 2010,” Ms Baraza said.

She added: “It’s also a fulfilment of the duty of transparency and provision to the public of timely and accurate information that is now an obligation of the government and a value of public service.”

The deputy CJ said the Judiciary was proud to be associated with the council saying the milestone would expedite justice since it would relay information to magistrates and judges when there was a dispute arising from court proceedings.

“The Hansard is an important reference tool for judges and magistrates,” she said. Court of Appeal justice Philip Waki said there will be no more cases of files getting lost. He is also the chairman of judiciary ICT committee.

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Source Daily Nation

By PETER NG’ETICH