He is former journalist and lawyer Mr Koreken Levi who will be responsible for the Department’s Policy Division.
Mr Levi who hails from Enga province is a graduate lawyer from the University of Papua New Guinea-UPNG. Prior to his appointment Mr Koreken Levi was the Acting Senior Legal Officer and Advisor to the National Security Policy Technical Working Committee within the Department of Prime Minister and NEC. He has also been a Policy Advisor on Infrastructure, Land and Resources, Social/Welfare and Law and Order. Mr Levi was also lecturing part-time at UPNG’s School of Law for 2 years from February 2012 to December 2014. He officially started work with the Department of Communication and Information, as the Deputy Secretary for Policy on the 5th of January 2015. He is not new to the Public Service having worked as a senior legal officer, Policy Advisor and in protocol with the Department of Prime Minister and NEC (PM&NEC) over a working life spanning more than 10 years. Mr Levi who started his career as a High School Teacher, teaching Grades 8, 9 and 10 English at the Tei Abal Secondary School in Wabag, Enga province, holds a double Degree in Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics/Social Planning and a Bachelor of Law from UPNG and a Masters in Law from Monash, University, Melbourne, Victoria. He is now the Acting Secretary for the Department of Communication and Information, while the Secretary Mr Paulias Korn is on leave. Mr Levi said that his vision is to ensure that the Information and Communication Technology-ICT sector is responsive to government’s development aspirations as reflected in the Vision 2050, to use ICT as a tool for development. ‘’The bureaucracy must not give excuses if the government comes good in funding some of its major impact projects and they must be delivered for the overall benefit of the 7 million plus people’’, Mr Levi said. He said he doesn’t believe in the bureaucratic non-sense of giving excuses and buy time to just let projects being left idle. Mr Levi said there are few major projects or activities that the Department should be responsible but are being undertaken by other agencies; and these have to be reverted back to the DCI so that it can have a policy oversight. ‘’This is serious business and I will advice the government accordingly where the line of duties, roles and functions are so that DCI has to step in with the oversight role. Responsibilities must not be duplicated or dumped in agencies that may not be the appropriate government agencies to carry out the specific tasks’’, the Deputy Secretary said. He added that if they have crafted under the guise of some acts, we will recommend for a review of those legislation so that as the Department, we must be seen to be actively supporting the government to achieve its grand development objectives in the Information and Communication Technology-( ICT) sector. ‘’My priority now will be to work closely with the National Information and Communication Technology Authority- NICTA Board to effectively deliver the Rural Communication Roll Out Project as well as the IGIS and review the Information Technology Board (ITB), and possibly streamline the ICT sector players into a more effective and manageable for purposes of policy oversight to give value to government business’’, Mr Levi said. The Rural Communications Project-RCP is an on-going government project funded by a credit facility from the World Bank aimed at increasing access to ICT and government services in areas where there are no telecommunications services. This will be done by providing voice telephony services in remote and unserviceable areas of the country through the construction of communication towers in 59 selected sites. It has three components and the first, is to build the capacity of the National Information and Communication Technology Authority (NICTA) to manage the Universal Access Scheme (UAS) Scheme over the medium-term. Second, the project finances a set of UAS demonstration projects, which support the policymaking and technical capacity of the Department of Communications and Information, the project implementation agency. Another component of this RCP is to provide internet and data services in the selected districts and also to provide and enhance technical capacity building in key sector organizations of NICTA, the ICT Regulator and DCI. It is jointly implemented by NICTA and the Department of Communication and Information-DCI and will end in August 2017. IGIS, the Integrated Government Information System has already been launched with the creation of National Data Centre and setting up of video conferencing facilities. IGIS main objective is to connect all government agencies with internet connectivity at a reduced cost, voice telephone and video conferencing facilities to make government business easier and cost effective. The Information Technology Board-ITB was a government authority set up to come up with a policy and legal framework to , drive and regulate the ICT sector but has been left dormant and the ICT sector has overtaken it. The Department of Communication and Information is the implementing agency with technical support from other key partners. It has three divisions, Corporate, Policy and Information Divisions.
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