Edith,

I like your firmness about it but I tend to agree with Walu. In my view, conflict of interest is inevitable here.  

I suppose that when one gets appointed to the ICT Board, the appointing authority has recognised that the person being appointed is more than a little passionate about ICTs and how it can be / is being used to change the world around him/her. The appointee is likely to be already playing really well in some corner of the planet, and it is this knowledge and experience that the persons appointed to the Board will fall back on to help them effectively accomplish whatever their roles demand of them. Appointment to the Board therefore automatically presupposes some degree of potential conflict of interest.

Members of the Board should therefore be bound by a policy that not only calls for full disclosure of potential conflict of interest but also addresses such conflict where it was not premeditated. If managed on the transparent platform that the ICT Board promises, then the Board members can continue with their personal businesses and also with the complex business of ‘making Kenya a regional ICT Hub’ within the set time-frames.

Resignation, even when it is a ‘personal’ decision, is harsh if there were no guidelines in the first instance. We need to see continuity and unity of purpose to realise this big dream. The continued absence of such guidelines can only complicate the lives of the Board members and distract them from making contributions to the country as they should. We, the public, also continue to be extremely sensitive about anything involving any one of them – we have every right anyway. But we need to see people step down or resign because everybody understands that certain specific rules of engagement were broken. What we urgently need to see, as Walu suggests, are some guidelines. Take anyone from this list and put them in the Board and I can bet they will not want to close shop because they are in the Board – the passions do not die with the appointment.

Betty

--- On Wed, 5/7/08, eadera@idrc.or.ke <eadera@idrc.or.ke> wrote:

From: eadera@idrc.or.ke <eadera@idrc.or.ke
Subject: Re: [kictanet] KCCT, BPO training, Board Member?
To: "Betty Ogange" <ogange@yahoo.com>
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 9:42 PM

Walu,

I'm not sure that conflict of interest can be "sugar coated". For
transparency and accountability sake, it MUST be a clear cut NO.

Edith



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