Govt moves to improve digital landscape
Minister of Information and Digitisation Gospel Kazako says government is working towards bringing down some taxes and formalising the information communication technology (ICT) sector.
The Minister made the remarks yesterday during a business breakfast organised by the ICT Association of Malawi (Ictam) to share notes on how to improve the country’s digital landscape.
Kazako said government wants to ensure that policies and implementation of programmes speak to each other and that the private sector is engaged in the realisation of the digital economy.
He said: “We intend to create to create the Malawi Information Technology Authority [Mita] to ensure good coordination in government.
“As we stand, a lot of money is lost because there is no centrality in the way we operate. This will help us know what we have and do not have in the sector. All this is meant to spur uptake of digital services.”
Kazako also admitted that some taxes in the sector are a cause for concern and a limiting factor to digitisation, saying government is reviewing these and others to promote the use of digital tools.
Currently, available data indicate that only 13.8 percent of the Malawian population uses the Internet.
This is despite numerous developments in the sector, including extension of fibre-optic backbone and cross-border interconnections, the launch of 4G, the establishment of the Universal Service Fund whose overall goal was to have the country’s Internet connectivity improve and charges remarkably drop.
Despite the initiatives, Malawi still lags behind on Internet connectivity characterised by high charges, low penetration rates and poor service provision, contributing to high cost of doing business, limited innovation and poor information flow.
On his part,Ictam president Bram Fudzulani said the association is keen to assist on the digitisation agenda by focusing on delivering reliable and affordable digital services in the country.
“We have agreed to formalise ourselves and form a task force that plays a voluntary advisory role to the ministry on what we think are the best practices that need to be done and policies that need to be implemented so that we create a conducive environment for industry players and at the same time protect consumers.
Fudzulani also observed that formulation of Mita will bring in order and will help accelerate the adoption of ICT in the country.
Previous studies indicated that taxation, market, and regulatory structures that do not encourage competition also slow down efforts for price reductions in mobile data packages and extension of broadband coverage.
Meanwhile, government is targeting to increase network access for internet usage to 80 percent of the population and broadband coverage to 95 percent of the population by 2026 from the current 13.8 percent.
