As you may know, the President of Zimbabwe is today announcing the new cabinet ministers that will head the country’s different ministries. In fact the announcement of the list is going on right now. We are, as would be expected, interested in who will head the ICT ministry. It is Webster Shamu. Him. Well, someone please update that Wikipedia entry.
The outgoing in this ministry is the much younger opposition minister, Nelson Chamisa.
We also notice another change; the ministry has been changed from “Information and Communication Technology” to “Information and Communication Technology, and Postal and Courier Services”. In short, it now includes the Postal and Courier services. We also notice the former “Ministry of Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Development” is now just Transport. Basically, this means it all now falls under one ministry which the regulatory authority, POTRAZ, will fall under. Understandably so; the previous split arrangement was a result of a negotiated split of powers between two political parties.
How do we feel about this? Kinda uninspired. As we have been even these past 5 years.
Information source: Newsday
19 comments
What does an old man know about ict, deadwood as usual.
mmmm, AGE is but a NUMBER.
Okay maybe he doesnt know about AngularJs/F#/COBOL/DNS/CSS/Agile but his position is about Policy.
There’s a misconception that ICT and telecoms are synonymous. That same misconception caused unnecessary squabbling during Chamisa’s tenure and the other ministry. When u say ICT you are more concerned with services as opposed to issues regarding regulation and control. A lot of it was due to lack of knowledge.
Thank goodness ministers are more symbolic than they are hands on. For ICT, at least we have Eng. Kundishora who is very clued up and is a moderate. Talking as an outsider,they seemed to have worked well together with Chamisa despite differing political affiliations. Am hopeful it will be just as good if not better with Webster.
wait for announcement of permanent secretaries !
I would have prefereed a younger person
What age range do you prefer? And why? Do you think we can make Prosper Chikomo the minister? He is young isnt he?
alright that’s one youthful, vibrant cabinet!
to top that up, Chinamasa for finance, Moyo for Information. Time to start packing the bags
Chamisa gave us internet & free duties , i hope Shamu gives us more.
Lets be honest Chamisa had no ICT acumen save for the mis apprpriated guessed any ICT enthusiast. Webster Shamu is not young but to his advantage he is a very open minded someone just hope he wont be like Chamisa
I hope that’s true because Shamu does look dumb.
At least Shamu is willing to learn and listen, Chamisa was arrogant, didnt attend meetings we invited him on time, if he attended at all, happy he now has nothing to do with our ministry
I completely concur. I met Chamisa at an ICT function having presented something very very elaborate that would have benefited tertiary education students. The concept was simple to start building clone computers at the UZ to provide affordable computers as well as the training for students. We discussed green technologies in terms of distribution of news papers, magazines and newsletters using a countrywide networked solution of printers where someone simply inputs a prepaid token and prints out their chosen document, other issues discussed are now been persued by myself and a private firm so I can not elaborate. Point is every visit to his office he had the cheek to send his secretary to say tell them five minutes or I am not here. We eventually gave up on him. If Shamu will listen then I think this is a step in the right direction.
the story of many a techie
But why would techies go to see Chamisa or Shamu? Are they trying to influence policy or trying to make money? besides the Tertiary guy should have gone the Ministry of education first.
for many reasons that may not just be policy. Not knowing their specific story ofcourse but there are a number of issues that techies (and not talking about programmers here, but people in the tech industry generally) would feel the ministry would play role in pointing them in certain directions, aligning products to government needs, backing concepts that other relevant ministries (e.g. education) will listen to etc…
And this is still not to say that the majority of techies needed to go see Chamisa, no. But those that needed to and did probably encountered such.
Lord have mercy
While i am not against the President’ choice, this ministry needs someone who is quite clued with the “World of Information Technology”. IT is taking control of everything and i really think Zimbabwe is far behind and hence the need for a genius to head this ministry. Zimbabwe is still looking for resources from outside to do certain specifics for companies. There is need to mentor local talent and that can only be achieved if the minister is quite clued as to where the world of Information Technology is heading?
We don’t need a Ministry of ICT but a department of Innovation within a development or Industry ministry that takes away the bureaucracy from the politicians and let REAL PEOPLE deal with innovative ideas, proposals or even projects from innovators, academics, enterpreneurs or really anyone.(Of course within the parameters of the policies laid out by the government of the day!!….nuff said)