THIS week started on a good note for the information communication technology sector following announcement of the commencement of the consultation process for a new ICT policy.

Policy consultations started on Tuesday in Marondera and proceeded to Mutare yesterday.
Consultation in other towns and cities has been slotted for later this month. The final review will be in Harare on July 26 after which the ICT Ministry will prepare a draft that will be used to formulate the national ICT policy.

ICT Minister Nelson Chamisa told a Press conference on Monday that the national ICT policy would be launched this year. The minister said the reviewing of the policy had been necessitated by the need to take into account developments in the ICT sector in recent years since the current policy was crafted six years ago.
“The first ICT policy was adopted in 2005 and was launched by President Mugabe in September 2007. It has served us exceptionally well as the starting point for the development and exploitation of ICTs within the country.

“However, it has been six years now, the time has come for a review of this policy, more so considering the rapid nature in which the renovation of technologies for information and communications take place,” said Minister Chamisa.
The nationwide review will be the cornerstone of the new ICT policy as it seeks to foster serious consultations between the ministry and the people, ICT experts and other stakeholders. This is an opportunity for all ICT enthusiasts and consumers to air their views to influence the kind of ICT policy that they want.

One of the key observations made by the minister was the need to move with speed on the country’s e-commerce framework and e-government together with the interoperability and the migration from the analogue to digital system.
The minister noted with concern that the country was lagging behind in this respect.

I received the news with so much excitement because it shows that we are a progressive nation because a lot has happened during the past six years.
Although this policy review may seem traditional or procedural to many, the ICT Ministry has a mammoth task ahead of them. ICT stakeholders and experts expect a policy that has answers to our day-to-day needs.

We have serious issues of website hacking, information security, network security policies and the IT governance statutes that we have to contend with as a country. A previous quick review proved that most institutions in Zimbabwe are operating outside any IT governance statute posing serious risk to organisations since ICTs are the bedrock of every entity.

Other issues of concern include having an IT manager reporting to the financial director which is the norm in almost every organisation in Zimbabwe.
This scenario has been identified as one of the main reasons why ICT development in most organisations has been slow. It has been argued that finance directors are more concerned in most cases with containing costs at the expense of beefing up ICT security.

An IT manager in most instances prepares a very technical proposition to the finance director to buy a new security server costing hundreds thousand of dollars and in turn the finance director turns down the proposal because they do not find the sense in fixing something which is not broken.
In developed countries, organisations have found a way around this by creating the post of chief information officer or IT director who report directly to the chief executive, managing director or general manager.

The National ICT Policy Review project is aimed to benefit all users of ICT services in Zimbabwe.
It has two main components e-policies formulation inclusive of e-Government and broadband strategies as well as technical, legal and regulatory frameworks.

It also involves e-leadership training and capacity building and the shared infrastructure and e-services development. Each of the components that derive from a National ICT Policy go beyond the basic individual rights such as freedom of speech and association but extend to challenges created by the explosion of new technologies accompanied by the increase in size and scope of data to be considered.

The main risks accompanying protection of such rights are highlighted in the loss of control by individuals of the use of their personal data and the increasing shift to automated decision-making.

Solutions must then be found to take into consideration issues relating to the creation of legal certainty, including protection of individual rights, transparency and regional homogeneity of ICT laws.

Minister Chamisa also noted that another aspect that they will be looking at is the mobile operators’ licences that are due to expire next year.
“After every 15 years their mobile operator’s licences are reviewed and we need to look at the pricing structures we offered them way in 1998,” he said.

The review of the ICT policy comes at a time when the country has made great strides in the sector.
Zimbabwe has more than 78 percent mobile penetration rate and is well positioned as one of the fastest developing ICT countries in the world.
The fibre optic from Harare to Bulawayo has been completed but because of  the UNWTO event, Government has to prioritise the connection between Bulawayo to

Victoria falls to facilitate communication during the conference.

The writer is a computing specialist at http://tech.co.zw, follow on Twitter @TechnoMagZw Facebook Page www.facebook.com/TechnoMagZw
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