By 
By Ross Moyo
ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera officiated at a National AI Seminar and endorsed Zimbabwe’s new sovereign ERP system at Harare Institute of Technology. This was done Wednesday, 30 July 2026 to push for digital sovereignty and local ownership of data ahead of AI adoption through policy commitments, a new AI Ethics Framework, and support for local tech firm Ndarama Technologies.
Zimbabwe must control its data or risk becoming a “digital colony,” Information Communication Technology Minister Tatenda Mavetera has warned.
Speaking while officiating at a National AI Seminar and the launch of Ndarama Technologies’ Enterprise Resource Planning system at HIT, Minister Mavetera said data should be treated as a national resource.
“Data is the new gold but only if you own the mine, control the refinery, and mint the coin,” she said. “This is the essence of digital sovereignty. It is about ensuring that Zimbabwe’s data — our digital gold — serves Zimbabwe’s interests first.”
The Risk Extracted, Refined Elsewhere was revealed by Minister Mavetera who said AI deployed in agriculture, health and finance must be built on local data, languages and culture.
“Without sovereignty, we risk becoming a digital colony, where our data is extracted, refined elsewhere, and sold back to us as finished products,” she said.
To prevent that, Government is prioritising infrastructure under Smart Zimbabwe 2030. Key plans include a National Data Centre ecosystem for secure, local hosting of government data.
AI Literacy, Ethics And Sandboxes were the ministry will also scale AI literacy through POTRAZ and innovation hubs, going beyond basic digital skills to include coding and computational thinking in secondary schools.
By Q1 2027, Government will table a Zimbabwe AI Ethics Framework to ensure AI systems are fair, transparent and free from bias.
Regulatory sandboxes will also be set up to allow startups to test AI solutions without immediately facing full regulatory burdens.
Local Languages And Innovation Funding according to Minister Mavetera, must be embedded as she said AI must understand Shona, Ndebele and other indigenous languages. Universities will be tasked with building local language datasets.
Government also announced the Zimbabwe Digital Innovation Commons — a partnership of Government, industry and academia. A portion of the Universal Services Fund will be ring-fenced to co-finance public-good AI projects in precision agriculture and smart health diagnostics.
Ndarama ERP is the “Nervous System” Of Government after the minister officially launched the Ndarama ERP System, which integrates finance, HR, supply chain and asset management across the public sector.
“By consolidating our back-end operations into a single, sovereign platform, we are doing more than cutting down on ghost workers or procurement leakages — though it will ruthlessly do both,” she said.
She said the ERP will provide the data foundation for predictive AI in Treasury and pattern-recognition tools for auditors.
Five Strategic Priorities were realised by
Minister Mavetera who outlined them as:
1. A National Digital Sovereignty Framework
2. Sovereign computing capabilities
3. Accelerated AI adoption in key sectors
4. Indigenous language AI
5. A stronger innovation ecosystem through research, startups and PPPs
“Let us build Artificial Intelligence that serves our people, reflects our values and advances our national development aspirations,” she said.
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