Story by Tichaona Kurewa
The Communications Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) has commended Zimbabwe for significant strides in developing the necessary telecommunications infrastructure to support e-commerce and other digital services.
The 2nd African Postal Regulators Forum which kicked off in Victoria Falls this Monday saw the region convening to tackle law enforcement challenges posed by new innovations and technology in the sector.
CRASA acknowledged that despite technological threats; Zimbabwe has made commendable strides in developing the postal and telecommunications sector over the years.
Executive Secretary-Communications Regulators’ Association Southern Africa, Ms Bridget Linzi said, Zimbabwe has been doing so far, especially looking into issues of ensuring that there is enough infrastructure as well as also networks for e-commerce, especially the parcel market, where you have been able even to include the private sector like the DHLs and others in the supply chain in terms of movement of parcels; I should commend Zimbabwe for what they are doing.”
CRASA and POTRAZ concurred on technological threats to the sector and the need to protect consumers.
“Over the next few days, we will explore the theme “Emerging Postal Industry and Regulation Trends in the Digital Age”, exchanging knowledge, best practices, and strategies to navigate the challenges of this dynamic era. This theme is both timely and forward-looking as the postal sector is operating in a rapidly changing environment, shaped by the digital transformation of traditional services, the emergence of value-added services, and the evolution of consumer needs. With these changes come new challenges, as well as immense opportunities to redefine and enhance the relevance of the postal sector in the digital age,” noted Mr Alfred Marisa, the deputy Direct General of POTRAZ.
Ms Linzi added, “We are looking into the issue of consumer protection, because we are here as government, as regulators to assure the citizens of Southern Africa that we deliver high quality service. So, there is more as regulators we have to look at in terms of the delivery times for these parcels, especially for e-commerce. We need to seek into things are that coming with digitalisation and we are talking of issues such as data protection, privacy and all those things that are coming through digital transformation.”
Zimbabwe’s efforts to licence new players, promote infrastructure sharing, establish a Universal Services Fund, and implement other initiatives have contributed to a combined mobile phone and internet penetration rate exceeding 70%.
