Africa-Press – Namibia. THE eight-member Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) task force wants the government to electrify the rural areas of the country.
They met with president Hage Geingob yesterday to give him an update on their progress. Task force chairperson Anicia Peters said this will advance the country into the 4IR, while some countries are already moving into the fifth Industrial Revolution. According to the World Bank collection of development indicators, access to electricity in Namibia was reported at 55,2% in 2019.
According to the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey of 2015/16, the country has a national electrification rate of approximately 45%. This means that more than half of Namibia’s population do not reap the benefits of having access to electricity.
“The 4IR is not only about connectivity but if we do not increase the rural electrification rate we can’t be harnessing these technologies. A lot of the factories are energy intensive,” she said.
Peters suggested that one of the government’s telecommunication companies be repurposed into an information and communications technology (ICT) agency to serve the government with hard and soft infrastructure.
“We really want to see whether one of the existing agencies in the telecommunications space can be repurposed to take on an apex coordination role. This is something we will pay particular attention to,” Peters noted.
She explained that currently some of the resources needed to move into the 4IR are missing. Peters also highlighted the struggle creatives and start-ups have with international payment gates and cash outs. This lack of access to payment gates takes money out of the country, she said.
“We have heard this one again and again. People in the cultural and creative industry have to travel to South Africa to open accounts at the very same banks that are operating in Namibia.
This money is then accounted for in South Africa,” Peters said. She further said ICT in Namibia is perceived to be a dead zone which needs recovery. Peters, after presenting to Geingob told The Namibian that they need the cyber crime bill to be passed.
“It is one of the bills that we need to enable a lot of things we do not have in the country. It has been creating challenges for us in the country by not having it. We cannot declare online crime [committed across our borders] as a crime.
We need to have it declared as a cyber crime, and that is why the bill is important,” Peters stressed. The cyber crime bill is one of many that has not been passed by the National Assembly.
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