ICT is not a preserve of elites–Minister Nsengimana

The Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, has said ICT is not exclusively made for elites but for all the people. He made the remarks recently at his office during an exclusive interview with The New Times. “In fact we want people to realise that ICT is not for elites, it’s not something made for the rich and the city dwellers, it’s something that is targeting that same Rwandan who benefited from gir’inka, Bye Bye Nyakatsi, VUP Umurenge, among others,” he emphasised.He stressed that all Rwandans should benefit from the ICT programmes that the country is running.In 2000, Rwanda embarked on the first of four five-year rolling plans: National Information Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plans NICI-2005 Plan focused on creating an enabling environment that enables the establishment and growth of ICT sector, NICI II (NICI-2010 Plan), embarked on providing world-class ICT infrastructures and NICI III (NICI-2015 Plan) puts emphasis on full utilisation of new services developed during phases one and two.“In NICI III, we shall make sure that ICT’s are more accessible and affordable for every Rwandan. Principally, we are going to focus on delivery of government services using new technologies where every citizen will be able to access these services hustle free,” Nsengimana stated.He said they have listed about 450 services to be put online that are delivered by various government institutions to citizens.The various government services to citizens lie in the areas of e-governance, e-banking, e-Learning, e-health, e-education and other applications.“We are going to start putting those services online, one by one, and wherever possible having them delivered using a mobile phone, for instance smart and non-smart phones,” he said.“We want to make sure that every household at least can access a mobile phone and this is going to be one of the key emphases of NICI III.” The Minister further explained in NICI III, they will focus on having basic financial services delivered using available ICT infrastructures which he said is going to be driven by the private sector.“It’s a trend we need to encourage. I don’t think the government will keep driving ICT growth in this country; it’s not a sustainable approach. The most appropriate one is the private sector ICT driven,” he asserted.He noted that in the private sector, financial services are leading the way but urged Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) to be innovative and apply ICT’s in their business models.