Software piracy expected to reduce as State abolishes tax

By Fredrick Obura

Software piracy is likely to reduce following the Government’s intervention to remove duty on imports.

Local ICT uptake has improved with better infrastructure that has seen entrepreneurs venture into information technology (IT) businesses.

The exorbitant price of genuine software has seen the IT industry either use pirated software or the free and open source softwares for programming.

The move continues to affect investors such as Microsoft and other similar companies, who have pumped in more money in research for quality genuine software.

The commercial value of unlicensed software installed on personal computers in Eastern and Southern Africa which excludes South Africa, reached $108 million (Sh9 billion) in 2011.

About 83 per cent of software deployed on Personal Computers during the year were pirated.

This is at almost double the global piracy rate for PC software, which is 42 per cent.

These are among the findings of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) 2011 Global Software Piracy Study, which evaluates the state of software piracy around the world.

The findings indicate current efforts to address negative impact of piracy in the region needs to be continued to maximise its impact.

“In order to restore dignity in the industry and attract foreign investments, I propose to remove duty on all imported software to make it cheaper to our people and further attract foreign investors in this industry,” said Finance Minister Njeru Githae in parliament last week during 2012/13 Budget Speech.

Economic boost

“The telecommunication and ICT sub-sector have continued to play a critical role to the entire economy, it needs to be protected,” he said.

The Transport and Communication sector has grown by 20 per cent for the period between 2007 and 2011.  According to Kenya Economic Survey 2012, this growth has seen transport and communications sector emerge as among the top four GDP earners.

The communication subsector grew by 4.3 per cent last year, a drop from the registered 4.5 per cent in 2010.

According to the Communications Commission of Kenya May statistics, mobile subscriber base grew from 20.1 million to 25.3 million as of June last year, while Mobile money transfers increased from 10.6 million to 17.4 million in the same period.

 The report projected the economy would grow between 3.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent this year, if political climate and weather conditions were favourable.