Tanzania on the Right Foot to Utilize Digital Economy

Tanzania governement is on the right foot towards embracing digital economy and benefitting from it as a result of the ongoing process of harmonizing laws and policies guiding the ICT sector.

This will also see hiring of consultant(s), who will advise on best ways to amend contradicting clauses, according to Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Information Technology, Dr Jim Yonazi.

Dr Yonazi stated this in a speech read on his behalf by the ministry’s Director of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), Munaku Mulembwa , during stakeholders’ meeting to discuss the digital economy framework.

“The development of ICT has made the Telecommunications Sector grow by 9.1 per cent in 2021 compared to 8.4 per cent in 2020.

In addition, the growth is at an average of 8 per cent per year from 2016 to 2021 and has been seen as the fastest growing sector,”

Dr Yonazi said.

He added that rising issues like the need for legal mechanisms to address private data security, and other digital infrastructures as well as platforms will soon be well addressed, after the consultant’s work is done and advice on the best approach.

According to the PS, ICT growth rate was attributed by increase in mobile services, especially in the mobile money transaction services.

He said in 2016, for instance Tanzania had a total of 40,173,783 registered mobile simcards and that has increased to 58,118,961 by September, 2022.

Elaborating further, he said in 2016 the number of internet users was 19,862,525 and shot to 31,122,163 by September, this year.

The PS said the ministry continues to oversee the implementation of the Digital Tanzania Project worth 150 million US dollars with financial assistance from the World Bank, since it kicked off in October, 2021.

“This project aims at increasing access to government services digitally; deployment of ICT infrastructures in government institutions, increasing the capacity of internet bandwidth used by the government; improving physical address system, promoting ICT research and innovation; and building the capacity of IT professionals just to mention a few,”

he explained.

On his part, Forensic Bureau Cybercrime Unit in the Police Force Commanding Officer, Mr Jacob Muwaja said the online and digital related offences have been minimised to the great extent that online patrols are there to assure safety to internet users.

Mr Muwaja said the police in collaboration with other security organs educate citizens to avoid online piracy.

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