The Secretariat was established in 1999 when the telecommunications and postal sector underwent liberalisation. Before then, the ICT sector was under the defunct Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) who were responsible for regulation and operations of all the activities of the sector. The liberalisation of the sector brought dissolution of KPTC and formation of the following institutions:
i. Communications Commission of Kenya (now Communications Authority of Kenya) as the regulatory body for the sector
ii. Telkom Kenya as the national telecommunication operator
iii. Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) as the national public postal operator
iv. Communication and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal (CMAT) as the appellate body for the sector
v. National Communications Secretariat
The reform process proposed the establishment of the National Communications Secretariat as a Statutory Body mandated to provide policy advisory services to the Government of Kenya through the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology.
The Secretariat was formally established through the Kenya Information and Communications Act (KICA) 1998. It was operationalized through the Legal Notice No.22 of 15th February 1999 which brought the Section 84 of the KICA 1998 into operation.