The KeNIC we want is one that delivers, lives, breathes its mandate: increase the uptake of .ke domains, full stop!
KeNIC is the largest player in the Kenyan ccTLD market, setting the pace of the local domain market. It is thus instructive that the body acts in the best interest of growing the market. It must avoid any moves that run counter to this goal.
There are 4 key factors in the success of any business: price, product, place and promotion. The 4 P's of marketing. In our case, the product is the domain, which for all practical purposes, is a commodity. The place is 'everywhere with an internet connection', meaning that you can now get a .ke domain from all over the world. Promotion is generally Internet-based, as the case with most other domains. The big P however, is the price - which was kind-of okay until 2017, when it was doubled overnight.
In a commodity market, eg sugar, salt etc, the biggest determiner of a successful sale is the price. Not allusion to patriotism or other such ideas. A case in point; when at a supermarket, what drives the purchase of a 2 kg pack of sugar? Country of origin, or price? What is your answer if one 2kg packet is 250/- while the other is 500/-? This very scenario is the current scene in the local domain market. And yes, to the non-attached person, a domain name serves the simple purpose of translating a human-readable name into an ip address.
mydukakenya.com vs
mygeneralduka.co.ke inspire little difference to many - thus a commodity.
But why is this important? In your question, Bw. Kivuva, you posited that South Africa has 1.3 million domains while Kenya has 80,000 domains. A quick glance through the Internet (place, promotion) shows that the annual renewal for a .
co.za is 75 rand, roughly equivalent to 525 Kenya shillings. Now, this is the price of the commodity in a South African market where the GDP per capita is USD 7,500 (KES 750,000). In comparison, the wholesale renewal price, as set by KeNIC, is a whopping 1,160 Kenya shillings - double the South African retail price. For a registrar to sell this off at a decent margin, the price set will be around KES 2,320! This, by the way, is in a Kenyan market whose GDP per capita is USD 3,000 (KES 300,000).
In a nutshell, we are selling the commodity at 4 times the price to people with half the economic power and wondering why they are not buying from us.The comparison is worse when considering the .com domains where most buyers are in the American economy. Ditto the .de domains and the German economy. It is the equivalence of selling a loaf of bread for 400/- at a local Kenyan supermarket. A supermarket where other loaves of bread are going for 50/-.
This thus begs the question, what would push a body, whose sole reason for existence is to encourage the adoption of Kenyan domains, make such a clearly blinded move? The earlier conversations here about governance - how we do things - come to the fore. As general knowledge, governance is the glue that ties the organization to its mandate. When governance is poor, the organization drifts away from its mandate. All decisions and movements made by KeNIC must be to the benefit of the Kenyan domain market.
If the allegations made by one of KeNIC's members, DRAKE, are thus founded, then one must draw a line of connection between this bad pricing situation and bad governance. The inefficiencies and losses suffered through poor governing systems must be covered by something, or someone. Inefficiencies come up through bad purchases that bring little value back, market-insensitive decisions, poor hiring and firing reasons - the list goes on. These inefficiencies are covered by higher domain prices. As discussed above, this is as short-sighted as it can be, market loss is inevitable.