‘Govt fulfilling President’s superhighway dream’
President Mugabe will today officially open the seventh Community Information Centre in Bindura, Mashonaland Central Province. He has opened such centres in Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland West, Matabeleland North and South and Midlands provinces. A lot has been said about the CICs, with some people saying it was entirely a ZANU-PF programme to benefit its supporters, while others argued it was a noble idea to bridge the communication gap. Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services Minister Supa Mandiwanzira speaks to our Reporter Freeman Razemba on this and more.
FR: The President has opened a number of information centres across the country, as the ministry responsible, are you satisfied with the uptake in as far as usage of the centres is concerned? SM: I think the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. I think the centres we have opened are functioning well. There is quite a lot of demand, but I think the management can be improved and improvement comes when you have faced difficulties here and there. We are very happy that the information centres are extremely useful to
the majority of the communities where they are located. We are inspired that a lot of people are using them and we want to put more on that investment, especially in rural areas where connectivity has been a major issue. FM: Some are criticising the President for officially opening what they dub “mere Internet cafes”, what is your response to that?
SM: That is total misinformation in terms of what we really intend to achieve by opening these kind of centres. There is a misconception by people in the United Kingdom, people in Australia, in the United States, who have good connectivity, high speed Internet, computers . . . The reality is that a lot of our people still don’t have access to Internet and resources to buy computers. I have many students who ask me as MP to donate computers because they can’t afford. What we are doing is we are providing facilities for students, for graduates and others to come and use a computer for next to nothing and this is critically important. People have to understand that this vision dates back more than 15 years ago when the President said we cannot leave anyone in our country behind in terms of the information super-highway. We are pushing the vision of the President and when the President comes to open the community information centre like this, he is very proud to see the implementation of his vision, maybe late, but the fact that it is happening gives him comfort and satisfaction. So, when he comes to open these facilities, he recognises that these facilities are important to the people. The President is not
the President for people in urban areas only, he is not President for those in the Diaspora, he is President of every Zimbabwean wherever under the sun and he is more proud to serve everyone. If that happens he is therefore proud to come and open these facilities. Community information centres serve the people, including vendors, schoolchildren, farmers and others, to procure goods, to check on basic information and so on, so they are not just Internet cafes. Anyone equating such an initiative to Internet cafes can only be mischievous and peddling ignorance. FR: There are fears that President Mugabe and senior party officials attend official openings in party regalia, therefore, making the facilities party projects, exclusive to Zanu-PF supporters? Are these Zanu-PF facilities?
SM: I think that it’s very important for people to understand that the President is many things in one. He is the Head of State and Government, he is the First Secretary of the ruling Zanu-PF party and when he is doing work in any of the two capacities, it doesn’t mean he loses the other capacity. When he comes to open a project by his Government, his ministry, he is doing it as Head of State and if he comes wearing party regalia, there is absolutely nothing wrong because he is leader of the ruling party that has facilitated development for the people. That has to be understood and I think that it is very easy to understand. The fact that he is President of Zanu-PF doesn’t mean, therefore, he is not President of everyone else. He remains the
President for anybody else and people should not confuse a situation that is very clear. FR: Besides these CICs, what else have you been doing as a ministry to ensure that you follow the vision of the President in ICT development?
SM: The upholding of the President’s vision, that you would know started more than 15 or so years ago when he used his own personal savings to have laptops at every school with electricity across the country, will not end with CICs. We are looking at following the President’s words to be going to universities and colleges like you heard him state in Gweru since the graduation season is upon us to assist students with computers. We don’t have resources for everyone, but we are not going to sit in our offices and homes and say we don’t have resources. We come up with ideas to have resources and that’s what we are doing. We see this as a huge opportunity for investment if you look into that. There is room in the manufacturing and assembling of laptops and other ICT gadgets. We hope investors can see this as a big opportunity to invest and if that happens, prices will come down and people can have access to more computers. FR: There are fears that youths may abuse these facilities, what measures have been put in place to ensure there is no abuse? SM: I think it is a bit unfair that the abuse will only happen in a community information centre. The reality is that anyone with a smartphone has potential to abuse that phone and what we have to do as Government, as a
ministry, is to educate Zimbabweans that the Internet is a very useful tool, but let’s not spoil its usefulness. FR: Where to from here? SM: Our emphasis going forward will be to build more. We want connectivity in the middle of nowhere, where we have communities who have no access to Internet, electricity, phones or computers. We are working on a rapid deployment of infrastructure that we are going to dumb in the middle of a village, but it will have electricity, Internet connectivity, solar power and we are connecting the whole country and that is the vision of our President. Everyone must be connected; everyone must be on the information super-highway. There are more than 160 centres that are being build, refurbished and will be opened before the end of the year across the country. Most facilities had become derelict, but we are ensuring that there is life in those properties. This is not an initiative or vision of the ministry; it is an implementation by the ministry of the President’s vision. FR: What is the latest on the Computer Crime and Cyber Security Bill?
SM: The final draft has come back from the Attorney-General’s Office and is now before the Cabinet Committee on Legislation. That committee is looking into that and if they are happy with it, it goes to full Cabinet and if Cabinet is happy, it will be brought to Parliament. On time lines, we are working hard to make sure it is fast-tracked, but we have to follow due process and that’s what is happening right now.