7 years ago...the 'State' with its new administration imprinted in the #jubileemanifesto a (amongst other digital CONnivance) an Integrated Public Camera Surveillance System (IPCSS)

#SafaricomPLC #Vodafone was single-sourced to steer the project to the tune of KES 21B

What was even baffling is the KES 440m paid annually for the maintenance of this infrastructure that on paper included:
2 Cities,1800 cameras with face & vehicle plate recognition complete with a ControlCentre (in China?), video conferencing units in 195 police stations....

...development of a 4G LTE network with 80 base stations for @NPSOfficial_KE supply & delivery of 7,600 multimedia handheld devices with SIM cards as well as linking 600 police stations to this IPCSS.

Whether all this was delivered...as they say "is neither here nor there"...

...but having worked for the parastatal that was burdened with executing the 'digital promise/profit', I usually found myself gravitating twrds such suppressed informative reports as this from @KICTANet
Someone has to ask the difficult questions to bots in @MoICTKenya

We were never ready for the migration at the start...but almost the entire populace was shifted into the digital age.
From the TV stations down to their handheld devices...the State & other #suzerainstates made an exponential formula for endpoints.
A data pool like no other.

Eventually... @SafaricomPLC had to engage an expert and many bids came in including Brit-American Lobby group @KEPSA_KENYA IBM (chief lobbyist Nesbitt) & Google (where @mucheru came from)

But they lost to our other main character-'State' i.e China. ZTE & Huawei survived eval...

...and ZTE, which was already in bed with the corrupt GoK in building Kenya's Fibre infrastructure, the GCCN & Government Data Centre, won the bid.
Somewhere down the line...Huawei quietly replaced #ZTE at @SafaricomPLC & the rest is history...even migrating #mpesa here

#mpesa infrastructure is Huawei & there was a time this was proven fact with the biggest downtimes experienced (It is said that day, Kenyan economy lost 5-10bn in 10hrs in 2017 & 6hrs in 2018)

So to tie this thread up succinctly...I Will ask Kenyans to join these dots...

We ran our most integral financial service, IPCSS data & critical infrastructure through #ChineseSOE like Huawei
The Wild White West recently came back with their data ingest tool #TrojanHorse #GoogleLoon
Our Data Protection & CyberSec Bills came after such developments...

...this means that all that data collected by these firms ends up in some database repository in China or elsewhere & there are no concrete laws safeguarding your data.
All 21st Century tech is now #DataDriven and you are the in/unsecured endpoint

I have no doubt about it. China needed to be monitored closely 20yrs ago and we failed to do so.
The dynamics are just complex...Brits own the SIM &Telco but the Chinese own the transmission infra its data and even make the damn devices.

Let's go back to #mpesa ...

#mpesa has to be the eye of the storm right now.
#Vodafone had no problem rolling the #FinService to UG & TZ, until the MTNs started looking at this differently.

Project #Wagalla aimed to effect the same change up North & it worked well until Ethiopian Central Bank said NO.

Door was closed here... https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/corporate/companies/Ethiopia-closes-door-on-M-Pesa/4003102-5512542-l8x3ju/index.html

Remember the conversation that was abound one time @SafaricomPLC was being pushed by Wangusi at @CA_Kenya to pay fines on downtime?...& besides this, a recommendation came from @parliamentkenya to have 2 separate entities with #mpesa as a Fintech product by Vodafone > Safaricom

They've had to do a 360° turn back to that conversation.
Opening up the platform as a standalone product that other businesses and governments can tap into.
@SafaricomPLC are Trying to sell emerging tech to GoK in the same way today.
@MoICTKenya & @ICTAuthorityKE are still asleep

@MoICTKenya and @ICTAuthorityKE wamelala class #kuruka
@opendatakenya died a natural death after we published analytics on sugar & maize production at the height of the scandals. We we're ordered to pull them down.
@KICTANet We need to support GoK in Data Mgmnt & Data Protection

But we know #GoK hawaambiwangi
Some of us were threatened, seconded until we had to leave so that we can share the flipside of the coin with Kenyans.

Let's be vigilant enough to take part in these conversations before its too late
A lot can happen in 7yrs of tech advancement.