Internet Bandwidth More Important Than Fuel on Foreign Currency Allocation: ISIT Director

Expressing his opinion at the Zimbabwe Internet Governance Forum (ZIGF) conference in Harare today the Information Society Initiative Trust (ISIT) director and founder, Reuben Gwatidzo said that the most important priority foreign currency is bandwidth coming over fuel in the country. Bandwidth describes the maximum data transfer rate of a network or Internet connection according to Techterms.
The director was presenting on “Internet governance: A consumer perspective” at a two-day conference which started yesterday running under the theme “The internet we want”.
Gwatidzo said that “the most important priority for foreign currency in bandwidth as the internet is now part of life in Zimbabwe.
The network bandwidth is becoming important as the use of Point of sales machines (POS) and mobile money is increasing in Zimbabwe.
The director talking on “Internet Governance: A consumer perspective” said that the role of the internet is to improve the quality of life for human beings.
Gwatidzo said if “we want to build the internet we want then let’s resource it” rather than getting resources from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) which bring in agendas that do not meet the needs of Zimbabweans.
The founder also raised the issues of systems failer that take place in some of the major mobile money providers resulting in consumers leaving their groceries at tills in supermarkets and called it a breakdown in the governance.
Another breakdown in the governance according to Gwatidzo is when national security capability does not detect the coming in of a deadly (computer) virus in the country.
ZIGF, which organised the conference is was launched in June 2015 with the objective of facilitating the participation of a broad range of stakeholders in Internet Governance issues.
The forum is composed of representatives from government ministries, regulatory authorities, legislature and also defence, security and law enforcement agencies.