WE are heartened by the assurance made by Government to the business community that it will continue to create a  conducive and thriving environment in the technology sector in order to initiate national sustainable growth.

. Mukanga

In a speech read on her behalf by Works and Supply Minister Yamfwa Mukanga, at the Zambia Information and Communication Technology (ZICTA) Business Forum at Mulungushi International Conference Centre yesterday Vice-President Inonge Wina revealed that Zambia has scored many achievements in the technology sector especially at global and international levels without reference to the immense contribution in Africa.
She said through innovation, Zambia had managed to create jobs and improvement of among others service delivery throughout the country.
We hail Ms Wina’s acute observation bearing in mind that whether we like it or not, this kind of technology is at the centre of development in the developed world.
As Ms Wina has observed, a vibrant home grown technological sector will reduce dependence on foreign goods and services.
It is with this realisation that Government is committed to ensure that a condusive environment is maintained to grow the nation.
As the Vice-President said, Zambia has through the e-Government programme, made steady progress in delivering some of the public services through e-platforms which have assisted greatly in making public service delivery more efficient, effective and delivered in a transparent and accountable manner.
The PF Government is living up to its manifesto in ensuring the country’s long aspirations as contained in the vision 2030 to embrace the use of ICT to transform the country into fully adopting the use of technology.
We also hail ZICTA director general Margaret Mudenda who, speaking at the same function, said Zambia needed concerted efforts from both the private sector and the Government in order to improve her global rankings in ICT access and usage.
“Zambia had made remarkable progress in terms of mobile and internet penetration with rates of 68 and 30 per cent respectively, the nation still had a lot to do in order to improve the regional and global rankings,” she said.
She said ZICTA would continue to promote universal access to ICTs through strategic projects and investments aimed at increasing access to and widespread usage of technology.
This is good news considering that the technology sector has impacted positively on all spheres of development, creating new frontiers in the media which has seen traditional media tools such as the newspapers, radio and television being transformed.
These new frontiers of the media have reshaped what has traditionally been a preserve of the newspaper, radio and television in news and information dissemination.
However, the transformation has also shown the PF’s commitment concerning the country’s transition from Analogue to Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasting (DTT).
Historically, we can cite the adoption of the Second Generation Digital Video Terrestrial Television Standard (DVBT-T2) Extension of DTT to areas in the country that were without the facility and review of the Broadcasting Licensing Framework which has allowed infrastructure sharing and issuance of licenses for the provider and the distributor as per approved guidelines.