Govt crafts policy to monitor Zim Asset

16 Nov, 2014 - 00:11 0 Views

The Sunday News

Roberta Katunga Senior Business Reporter
GOVERNMENT has crafted a new policy to monitor and evaluate the projects outlined in the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset) which is awaiting polishing up and approval by Cabinet, Sunday Business has established.The policy is now with the Attorney-General’s office which will ensure it is aligned to the laws of the country before it is submitted to Cabinet for approval.

Speaking at the Computer Society of Zimbabwe summer school held in Victoria Falls last week, the director of Information Communication Technology in the Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services, Mrs Beaullah Chirume, said the monitoring and evaluation policy would provide benchmarks on the progress of Zim Asset.

The economic blueprint, expected to run until 2018, outlines a number of projects that various Government departments are supposed to take as a way of reviving the economy.

Most of the programmes, however, have been slow in implementing, because of funding. The projects require an estimated $27 billion to see the light of day.

“It is true that as Government we come up with good blueprints but when it comes to implementation we lag behind, there is no one who can say for sure where we are with any policy. For this reason this policy has been crafted to assist in evaluating implementation,” said Mrs Chirume.

She said key people from various Government departments were selected to come up with the monitoring and evaluation policy.

Mrs Chirume said the policy was supposed to have been in place by 1 November but was running late.

“We are a bit behind with our timeline as this document was supposed to have been in place this month but before long it will be done,” she said.

Speaking on the ICT policy review whose draft was made in 2012 but was not finalised, Mrs Chirume said the policy was now complete and was also with the AG’s office.
She blamed lack of funds as the major obstacle to reviewing the document meant to be the guiding principle for the sector.

“Funding derails set targets but significant progress has been made on the draft national ICT policy. We do have a running policy and this is just a review to bring the ICT industry up to speed with the latest developments and ensure that Zimbabwe does not lag behind in the information age,” said Mrs Chirume.

The national ICT policy is now over nine years old.

The policy was reviewed to align it with the Zim Asset blueprint.

ICT is placed under the infrastructure and utilities cluster in the blueprint and is recognised as one of the key drivers of economic growth and the strategy focuses on

“Expanding the accessibility and utilisation of ICTs to improve service delivery and accelerate economic growth”.

Said Mrs Chirume: “This acknowledgement that ICTs are indeed central to any anticipated socio-economic growth has steered and guided developmental programmes implemented through the ministry.”

However, ICT experts have raised mixed feelings over the new policy with some saying creating a new policy would do little to spur growth in the sector without funding.

The policy is expected to give direction in terms of modern infrastructure that would assist in increasing internet connectivity and business transactions.

With regards to the 2005 ICT policy, a national e-readiness survey precipitated this move and outlined the status of the industry then, which formed the basis of its contents.

The stakeholders covered by this national e-readiness survey included ICT players and professionals in Government, governance, education and training, agriculture, commerce, SMEs, health, mining and manufacturing, transport, tourism and environment.

ICT has contributed more than five percent to the Gross National Product underpinned by an increase in mobile penetration rate from 97 percent in 2013 to around 103 percent.

Internet penetration has also grown from 31 percent in 2013 to 43,1 percent.

 

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