Minister transforms Zimbabwe into an ICT based economy
By Kenneth Matimaire – ZIMBABWE – Recent statistics from the ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) indicates that the Zimbabwean government is making tremendous strides in its quest to transform the country into an ICT based economy.
- ICT minister Mr Nelson Chamisa stresses a point
Though the young ministry was formed in 2009 following the formulation of the inclusive government amongst Zimbabwe’s three main political parties, Zanu PF and the two MDC formations, ICT has grown to become the second best contributing sector towards the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Current statics indicate that in terms of contribution to the GDP, ICT had about 15.2 per cent in the 2010/2011 budget and agriculture had 15.5 per cent.
Agriculture has been traditionally regarded as the backbone of the country’s economy but figures indicate that it will soon be overtaken by the ICT industry since it has been performing beyond capacity for the past decade.
This has in turn forced the government to formulate other channels to resuscitate the country’s ailing economy and the minister of ICT, Mr Nelson Chamisa said information technology is the “best option.”
The MDC-T minister (Mr Chamisa), in his 2011-2015 ICT Strategic Plan said the transformation will see Zimbabwe evolving from a Predominantly Agriculture Economy (PAE) to a Predominantly Information Knowledge Economy (PIKE).
“So perhaps instead of saying land is the economy, we are going to say ICT is the economy and the economy is ICT,” said the shrewd minister before hastening to say, “But not to say the latter (agriculture) is not important.”
Mr Chamisa gave a helicopter assessment of the project saying, “The first thing in our vision is to make sure that by 2015 we are all in together in the knowledge drive as a knowledge economy. This means by 2015 Zimbabwe is supposed to be an information and knowledge society, economy.
“The second issue, we want ICT to be the catalyst for socio-economic growth. In fact our vision is to make sure that Zimbabwe becomes a hub of ICT.”
To make the ICT Strategic Plan a living reality, the ministry embarked on a robust network planting process of the fibre optic cable connecting the country with Asia via Beira.
The planting exercise of the optic fibre cable commenced early last year. The process resulted in massive digging country wide. The government partnered with several companies such as Africom, Powertel; mobile operators, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, Telecel, and Net One.
The project in expected to be complete by end of November or early December and has chewed up to $15 million, whereas the government injected $6.3 of the amount.
To further consolidate the project, the ministry went on to scrap duty on all the ICT gadgets such as computers, cell phones, cable, digital cameras base stations and other ICT related products. The policy was extended through the budget statements by the ministry of Finance.
Statistics further reveal that the advancement mobile penetration rate is up to 63 per cent from 12 per cent in 2008. At the inception of the ICT ministry, of every 100 people, only 12 had cell phones but two years down the line the figures have shot up to 63 per every 100.
Internet penetration rate is now 19 per cent broadband access up from 1.3 per cent in 2008. The average in the continent is 11 percent.
Zimbabwe’s monthly analysis of the bandwidth used to be as low as 200 Megabytes per second but it is now hitting almost over a 1Gigbyte, (1.089Mb) per second.
Minister Chamisa is positive that by making Zimbabwe the “Silicon Valley and Bangalore of the continent,” an economic turnaround is foreseeable.
In terms of news analysis from Frost and Sullivan –a mobile communication grouping – the market in Zimbabwe in 2009 earned about 372.2 million from ICT.
According to the 2010 Postal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ), Zimbabwe has 1 Telephone Network, 3 Mobile Services Providers, 11 Internet Access Providers, 2 Public Data Networks and 18 Internet Service Providers registered in the country.
Meanwhile, the ICT ministry in its quest to transform the Zimbabwean government ministries and departments from the paper mindset to an e-gov has created websites for all ministries, given all the ministers and permanent secretaries laptops and currently training all civil servants in the capital city Harare.
