23 Apr 2023

Technological advancement can help move the country from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy, says acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Communications, Knowledge and Technology.  

 Speaking at this year’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Pitso held in Tlokweng recently, Mr Pontsho Pusoetsile said the ministry would continue to expand its online services, especially the onboarding exercise which was currently pending.

“We were supposed to have as a government a digital identity cards (IDs), because once we have them we can use them across the whole economy. These digital IDs will help service providers to onboard their customers remotely,” Mr Pusoetsile said.

He added that there was also the need for government to onboard citizens in order to be able to access the already existing services. 

“Onboarding is important because it helps to confirm that individuals doing the transaction is who they claim to be, but to confirm the process you need to physically go to government office,” he said. 

Furthermore, he said they were connecting communities and over 50 per cent of the country’s population have at least 4G connectivity.

“This is inclusive of offices such as dikgotla, schools and health facilities. We have a target to have fully connected across the country, a minimum of 4G in rural areas and 5G in urban areas in the next two years,” he added.

He also indicated that government had prioritised citizen empowerment.

“Everything that would be done will be outsourced,” he said.

The other key element, he said, was private sector participation in the economy so that it can be controlled by the market itself.

“Some of the services we should not be providing as the government, we must give them to the private sectors,” he said.

Meanwhile, Botswana Consumer watchdog founder, Mr Richard Harriman said cyber security was vital for the envisaged economic diversification and therefore called for implementation of the local consumer cyber security and building capacity to deal with cyber-crimes.

Mr Harriman highlighted that currently there were no laws that dealt with cybercrime and attacks thus the need for government to upscale protective measures against cyber criminals.

“Cyber criminals mostly target personal information, which could be used for various immoral activities. The country should implement consumer data protection act, to assist organisations on investing in relevant technological infrastructure,” he said.

He also advised the public to be well-informed of the latest tools and technologies that criminals used to breach networks and devices. ends