Man Seeks to Stop Nemis Use, Claims Ownership
A citizen named George Kamau has filed a lawsuit claiming ownership of the National Educational Management Information System (Nemis), a computer program used by the Ministry of Education in Kenya to keep records of learner data and distribute funds to schools.
Mr. Kamau alleges that he presented a similar software called Institutions Network to the Ministry in 2014 but was turned down. He claims that Nemis, which was unveiled by the Ministry in 2018, is similar to his software and that he owns the copyright to it.
Through his company Netresource Ltd, Mr. Kamau is seeking an injunction to stop the use of Nemis.
If successful, this would significantly affect the Ministry’s operations. According to the court papers, Mr. Kamau intended to license the copyrighted program to the Ministry at KES 50,000 per institution.
Mr. Kamau claims that he submitted the codes to Institutions Network, along with its database, to an IT employee at the Ministry, Benson Omondi, in November 2015.
He says that a meeting was held to pitch the software, and the Chairperson Rebecca Gathoni commented that they would recommend the system.
Mr. Kamau alleges that after presenting a concept note and making a presentation to the Ministry directorates in December 2016, the Ministry officials were satisfied and wrote a preliminary report appraising the same.
However, the suit papers state that a planned meeting between Mr. Kamau’s company, then-Education CS Fred Matiang’i, PS Belio Kipsang, and the Director-general was canceled in March 2017.
Later, the director of ICT informed Mr. Kamau that the Institutions Network program had been overtaken by events, and the Ministry was working on Nemis, which was developed through a grant from the Global Partnership for Education.
In response to the application, Principal State Counsel Emmanuel Kiarie says that there is no contract between Netresource and the Ministry of Education, so there is no breach of contract.
He adds that Netresource has failed to demonstrate how Nemis infringes on the copyright work relating to Institutions Network. He notes that Nemis has no commercial benefit to the government as the Ministry does not charge users to access it.
Mr. Kiarie emphasizes that Nemis has captured details of millions of students, parents, and guardians, and therefore, there is a need for the court to safeguard and ensure the safety of private, personal, and confidential data.
Man Seeks to Stop Nemis Use, Claims Ownership
