By The 2018 National Budget provided handsomely for e-government projects, with the government prioritizing ICT to cut expenditure. But while this is good, there is more to ICT than just e-government projects.
In his State of the Nation Address, President Emmerson Mnangagwa reiterated the government’s position to develop robust e-government projects to help fight corruption, keeping in line with the ICT revolution and boost internet connectivity to create an ease of doing business environment in Zimbabwe.
By Pearson Mbendera
“In this new era, measures being taken to vigorously spearhead the e-Government programme. Not only the means to keep in step of the ICT revolution, but also to fight corruption. This is being complemented by the current drive to boost internet connectivity all over the country,” said the president.
The government’s approach to ICT is sound but seems to minimalistic as there is more that the nation can harness from the power of ICT.
At the moment, the country is reeling from price increases that threaten collapsing the economy. While these can be attributed to a lot of factors including the prices of raw materials, generally, the prices of commodities in Zimbabwe have been higher than the prices in the region. Our production methods
While the country is looking at ways to attract foreign direct investment, it also needs to look at creating a viable environment that will lead to the development of homegrown technologies in Zimbabwe. The world over, the technology sector has already seen a lot of self-made billionaires rise. Most of the richest people in the world have the bulk of their wealth in technology.
In a lot of ways, we have been too specific in how we address certain issues. The nation needs to come up with holistic measures to address economic issues, and they include ICT.
When the ICT minister Supa Mandiwanzira led a delegation to the ITU Telecoms World 2017, a lot of ideas were shared about the telecoms industry that can go beyond reshaping our own telecoms industry but the economy of Zimbabwe as a whole.
POTRAZ Director General Gift attended an ITU event in Argentina where he urged the world to promote universal healthcare, showcasing how technology can be used in a great many things, including healthcare. Considering the state of our health system in Zimbabwe, the availability of technology will go a long way in ensuring the betternment of the sector, and it will also see the prices of health care going down while the quality will go up.
I believe that technology is that answer to many of our problems and that it can help us solve them, we just have to give a lot to it, just as much as we do other things.
There isn’t a single sector in Zimbabwe that cannot benefit from ICT and technology. From agriculture to healthcare, from Education to manufacturing, there are a lot that ICTs can do to ensure that the nation produces more, reduces costs and is able to export at a more competitive price that will fetch a lot of the much needed foreign currency in this country, the lack of which has left us reeling with a lot of economic problems that we have been failing to provide answers to.
Comments