Staff Writer
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe Director General Dr Gift Machengete says more co-located base stations shall be relocated to ensure all unserved and underserved pockets in Matabeleland South and other parts of the country receive coverage.
Speaking at the commissioning of Computer School Laboratories last week in Matebeleland South, Dr Machengete said the government shall leave no place and no one behind.
“The clarion call that came from the community was that of coverage – coverage – coverage.
“At every school we visited the request from the community was for base stations – base stations – base stations.
“Hon Muswere gave the assurance that this problem was being attended to and shall soon be a thing of the past.
“True to this I am happy to announce that Bulilima District is a recipient of a base station at Nswazwi which was relocated from Shangani under the POTRAZ funded Tower Relocation Program Works at the Shangani Donor site are 100% complete and civil works at Nswazwi coverage extension site are also 100% complete. “Nswazi access road is at 90% completion,” he said.
“We now working on a power solution for the site, after which all the three Mobile Network Operators Econet, NetOne and Telecel will come on air at the site.”
Dr Machengete made a passionate plea to pupils not to indulge in drugs and alcohol but focus on education.
”The future is not in drugs and alcohol, the future is not in bullying each other in school. The future is not in partying.
“Rather the future is in your education – the future is in acquiring digital skills – the future is in ICTs,” he said.
He said POTRAZ was working together with the Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services, in making your future brighter and rewarding.
“Our way of doing this is by capacitating young people such as yourselves with digital skills through the provision of computer labs in schools, hence the launch of various such labs in this district and across the country,” he said.
Each year, POTRAZ rolls out an innovation competition which we call Hackathon to aid young people in creating their own employment.
“The computer lessons that you shall undertake following the setting up of
computer labs, will enable young people from Matabeleland South Province to compete in such competitions and contribute meaningfully to their communities by creating ICT solutions to everyday challenges,” Dr Machengete said.
“Additionally, to aid young people in creating their own employment, POTRAZ is asking youth to create online content for Community Information Centres.
“Make use of the computer labs to acquire digital skills which you can use to create online content, which you can monetize.
“We started the content creation project last year and proposals from various content creators seeking to have their content uploaded at CICs at a fee are already trickling in.
“Interested learners from this district are encouraged to take up courses like graphic design, website design and development, animation and other online content creation related fields,” Dr Machengete said.
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