$68 billion gap in digitization funding cuts off m...

$68 billion gap in digitization funding cuts off marginalized communities from information says minister

If funding gaps are not covered, it will take over 30 years to complete the digitization program leaving many communities to remain cut off from access to information.

This was said by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa during Parliament’s 2023 Pre-Budget seminar in Harare yesterday.

“When we talk about the 2023 Budget envelope, the ministry was allocated a budget ceiling of $5,3 billion against a bid of $73,4 billion, resulting in a gap of $68 billion.

“The $5,5 billion is supposed to cater for the ministry’s operations and yet it is creating a deficit of 93 percent. Our ambition as a ministry is to complete the digitisation project in three years, but given the budgetary support of $1,5 billion against the $23,6 billion required for that project, we will only be able to purchase one transmitter,” said Mutsvangwa

The programme which was meant to be in place by 2025 is aimed at migrating the country’s broadcasting services from analogue to digital.

Thus not completing it will be against the principle of universal access to information and ensuring that marginalised communities also have access to information, Mutsvangwa added.

“While we established 18 transmitters, those are fully complete and digitised, we know that our citizens are not fully benefiting from them because they need set-top boxes to access television, and we are saying 18 transmitters have been fully digitised and fully paid for,” she said.

She said the project needed to be expedited as it was behind schedule and continued stalling of the project might lead to technological changes overtaking it before completion.

“Skills in this area are very mobile globally and slow pace of implementation may result in the project losing critical skills,” said the minister.