The government has spent about Sh400 billion to improve and strengthen communication infrastructure in the country during the past two years, a meeting heard in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.
The Deputy Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Mr Kundo Mathew, said during the 5th Innovation and Technology Forum in Dar es Salaam that the budget is a significant step taken by the government in the past two years of President Samia Hassan’s leadership.
He said the government was putting emphasis on strengthening the communication infrastructure because it was a vital step in stimulating and motivating technological innovation and creativity for economic expansion.
He said the forum, which went with the theme of: ‘Innovating policy — a forward-looking and integrated approach to policy-making in the digital age’, was important for unearthing difficulties and challenges that hamper the speedy development of the communication sector and the ICT industry.
“President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s administration continues to improve the investment environment primarily to attract people to invest in the communication sector and the information and communication technology (ICT) industry. We shall work on the recommendations of this forum in order to promote President Samia’s efforts towards attracting investors in our country,” he said.
The Director General of the Information and Communication Technology Commission (ICTC), Dr Moses Mwasaga, said the commission attaches great importance to the deliberations and recommendations of such forums because, he said, the recommendations seek to solve the challenges and problems of the day.
“Challenges discussed in such forums and recommendations made as a result help the government formulate a policy that is friendly to solving challenges that keep emerging because this sector, too, keeps changing and improving all the time,” Dr Mwasaga said.
He also extolled the CRDB Bank for developing a product (Imbeju) that promotes digital innovation and inventiveness among prospective and budding entrepreneurs, saying that the move shall be supported by their commission because, Dr Mwasaga said, it seeks to improve the livelihoods of the poor, who are the majority in the country.
The Executive Secretary of the Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC), Dr Godwill Wanga, said Dr Samia Hassan’s ambition is to see technology play a leading role in the growth of the national economy. “In this respect, we peg our hopes on active and energetic small innovators in order to grow and sustain this sector in our country,” he said.
