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| Hon. Januari Makamba |
As usual it
was another cool brainstorming session at the Kinu
Hub where people get to share their ideas and opinions on
different matters that can impact the community through the use of technology.
So many tech enthusiasts, IT Professionals, Media and decision makers attended
the session. The main reason people gathered together was to discuss the open
governance project which started as an idea from the Deputy
Minister of Science and Technology and the MP for Bumbuli constituency Hon.
Januari Makamba.
The name
of the project is M-Rushwa, M-Rushwa like other mobile projects in Africa which
are used to impact the local communities is the platform where by it gives
chances to the people who want to report the crime in real time to have the
ease of access mechanism of reporting the crime to the authority as it happen. The platform has been integrated with
a site and Mobile based USSD application in which both of them produce the flexibility
for an individual to report the crime and at the same time to analyze through
statistical map the rate of occurrence of corruption activities in the given
area.
According
to the statistics provided it shows less than 10 percent of corruption cases
are being reported to the authorities while the remaining percentage remained
unreported to the
local authority the main reasons being two first, people want to report the
crime but they lack means of reporting the crimes in real time and secondly
other issues like awareness and people being afraid of the authorities.
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| Preparation for the event. |
When Mr.
Januari Makamba was asked about the credibility of the system and the security
(privacy of the user). Using his developers opinions he explained that the system is credible and
they are at the early stages of creating the system and promises with time they
will have better and secure system but still he encouraged people (Tanzanians)
to use the system has an act of patriotism and commitment to our country and
helping our government to fight against the corrupt systems of officials.
The platform
seems to tackle one of the major problems, the lack of immediate way of
reporting the crimes without going through a lot of inconveniences.
The session was great everyone got the chance to contribute and even the engineers behind the project were surprised by the activeness of the audience. I got the chance to talk to Hussein one of the M-Rushwa developers from United Kingdom and he was like “it’s amazing how people asked questions really it was a great challenge to us and we have learnt a lot of things from this session that we should take care before we release the system” Hussein.
The session was great everyone got the chance to contribute and even the engineers behind the project were surprised by the activeness of the audience. I got the chance to talk to Hussein one of the M-Rushwa developers from United Kingdom and he was like “it’s amazing how people asked questions really it was a great challenge to us and we have learnt a lot of things from this session that we should take care before we release the system” Hussein.
People go
the opportunity to tryout the platform through the code *149*17#, although there were some redundancies since the
system is still on pilot stage but some of the people within the audience they
manage to access the system through their Airtel and Vodacom registered numbers
on their mobile phones although there were a lot of time outs for Vodacom
mobile phones subscribers a technical problem in which according to the
platform developers it is a technical problem which can be fixed as soon as
they meet with the Vodacom technical team. On the other
hand the platform will be available to other mobile phones service vendors the
likes of Zantel and Tigo in the near future after they finish official
agreements with the companies.
There was
some question if the platform and the system will work hand on hand with the
current government department which deals with corruption and abuse of power
(PCCB). The answer from Mr. Januari
Makamba was they are looking
forward to meet with PCCB to talk about the issue since first the project was
just aiming to work only on his constituency, Bumbuli.
PCCB have their speed dial code of 113 to report crimes that are related to
corruption and abuse of power although he insisted he will not allow the system
to be tempered with individual and he is looking forward to create an
efficiency and credible system of reporting corruption activities in Tanzania
There was an
issue of awareness among the mobile users about the system and to make it popular
among the mobile phone users simply meaning that to make the project work
practically to the local community. He said, after the official launching of
the platform and the projects go live there will be a lot of campaigns and
awareness programs to make people familiar of the project and encourage them to
use the system.
January Makamba Deputy Minister of Communication, Science & Technology. Politics & Foreign Relations Secretary of the ruling party CCM. MP for Bumbuli Constituency: Tanzania · http://januarymakamba.com
Yet again,
thanks to KINU the organizers of the space and the event it was a marvelous
session a really tech environment were by people could interact with the
session directly from anywhere in the world we add Jones one of the co-founder
of KINU asking questions from Nairobi and a lot of twits coming in throughout
the session without forgetting the Samosas and other cool bites, it was an
interesting session.
For More
details on M- Rushwa the details can be found from this link or Follow Mr.
Januari Makamba on twitter @JMakamba without forgetting to always be in touch
with the Tanzanian leading online tech magazine tech360magazine.com on twitter
@GTech360. To access the site www.mrushwa.com
you will have to use the password: mrushwa149 and yes the number of
mobile phone users in Tanzania is expected to hit 36m by 2015.
Jumanne
Mtambalike
TECH360
Correspondent