16 Feb 2020

For Botswana to achieve her aspirations of Vision 2036 and beyond there is a need to assess its readiness to implement and exploit the new opportunities brought by the rapidly evolving technologies.

This was said by the Assistant Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC) Mr Buti Billy when opening the second Annual Records Management and Archives Conference in Gaborone on Thursday.

 In light of the theme: Records and Archives Management in the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) towards attaining knowledge-based economy, Mr Billy said it echoed the need to transform to intelligent information management practices.

Mr Billy further said Records and Information Management enabled operational and business processes for almost every organisation hence the need to deliberate on opportunities and risks that came along with the virtual office.

“Capitalizing on these opportunities encourages economic growth through job creation and taxation. The 4IR has the potential to resolve information asymmetry problems through efficiency, security and certainty of information flow,” said Mr Billy.

According to Mr Billy, the ministry had committed itself to transform and improve the use of technology for operational efficiency through the development of the National Archives and Records Management System (NARMS) which upon completion would be rolled out to some ministries and eventually to the entire government sector.

“NARMS is geared towards computerisation of Records Management processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness. It has three sub-systems being Records Management Unit, Records Centre and Archives Administration,” he said. ENDs