NAIROBI, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government vowed to step up measures to ensure that manufacturers of electronic products avail to the market only environmentally friendly and quality products for local consumption.
Information and Communication Minister Samuel Poghisio said the government would not allow sub-standard electronic gadgets to be dumped in the country as they contained toxic chemicals and heavy metals that cannot be disposed off or recycled safely.
"The government in the ICT policy is very keen on this issue and is promoting the use of environmentally-friendly products to address environmental and cost issues. This includes developing regulation for recycling and disposal facilities," the minister said.
He said the telecommunications regulator, the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) and the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KBS) were working closely to ensure Information Communication Technology (ICT) products and services met the required national and international standards.
"The world is consuming more and more electronic products every year. The amount of electronic waste discarded globally has skyrocketed with million of tons being generated every year. This has caused a dangerous explosion in electronic scrap containing toxic explosion in metals that cannot be disposed or recently safely," he said during the launch of LG's latest mobile handset "Viewty" in Nairobi on Wednesday night.
The minister said the world was consuming more and more electronic products yearly and the amount of electronic waste discarded globally had skyrocketed as millions of tons continue to be generated annually.
The minister challenged mobile phone manufacturers to produce environmentally friendly phones and insisted that they focus on quality rather than quantity in the production for environmental considerations.
Poghisio also urged the manufacturers to give consumers reasonable warrant periods to reduce dumping of substandard devices in the country saying they also needed to set up local assembly plants to create employment opportunities for locals.
"As a government we are trying our best to ensure that the mobile phones penetrate deeper into the entire country as we invest heavily in infrastructure. Once the fiber optic lands in Kenya, mobile phone use will increase especially due to lower costs of bandwidth," he added.
However, he noted that even with the growth of the mobile industry, rural areas continued remaining less well served because of several challenges like high rates of poverty, illiteracy and difficulty in accessing phone services.
Poghisio announced that the long awaited mobile operators Telkom Kenya's Orange and South African-based mobile firm, Econet Wireless will roll out their services soon to create a more competitive environment among operators thus lower the calling charges and boost the demand for mobile phone handsets.
LG has introduced the world's first 120 frames per second (fps)high-speed video recording feature for handsets with LG Viewty into the local market.
The company's Regional Marketing Manager Anthony Hutia said the Viewty handset would enable users to videotape extremely fast action around them and then play it back at much slower speeds of 15 fps.
"With this mobile handset, one can take pleasure in viewing the everyday motions normally missed by the naked eye, from a bird's wings flapping to a bolt of lighting," Hutia said.
He said researchers at LG developed the breakthrough "120 fps video recording" function in response to consumers' heightened interest in producing personal videos. Hutia said the adoption of an ultra high-seed photography feature aims to deliver even more possibilities of users keen on living and enjoying their lives to the fullest.
"This industry-leading technology represents a perfect balance of functionality and efficiency by marching LG Viewty's memory processing capability with other view systems," said Hutia.
