Secretary to Cabinet Roland Msiska has launched the Government Wide Area Network (GWAN) aimed at interconnecting all government ministries and agencies countrywide.Dr. Msiska has since instructed heads of government institutions to ensure access to the facility is restricted to government business only.He noted that the coming of the facility poses great temptation to public officers who may want to stray into other unproductive sites thereby compromising the delivery of public services to the people.
He also urged heads of government institutions to come up with guidelines on how officers should use the facility to avoid leaking confidential government documents.The Secretary to Cabinet was speaking when he officially launched the Government Wide Area Network in Lusaka today.
Dr. Msiska stated that information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure was a vital component for facilitating improved service delivery by government especially in a knowledge based economy like Zambia’s.He said with this in mind, the Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel) was in 2013, chosen to provide an internet protocol transport wide area network required to improve service delivery by all government ministries and agencies across the country.
Dr. Msiska said the completion of this project makes it possible for government to have full visibility and control of the network through a centralised network management and monitoring system.
And Zamtel Chief Executive Officer Mupanga Mwanakatwe disclosed that phase one of the project has been successfully completed and became fully operational on April 15, 2014.
Dr. Mwanakatwe said this has resulted in a highly secure, robust, efficient, scalable and reliable network, connecting a total of 24 government ministries including Cabinet Office, Office of the Auditor General and State House.He said phase two of the project will result in the interconnection of government ministries and agencies in all the ten provincial centres spread across the country.He added that a joint team of government and Zamtel personnel have completed surveys for phase two and will soon commence the works.
Dr. Mwanakatwe further stated that phase three of the project will interconnect all the government ministries and agencies in the remaining districts.He disclosed that through the implementation of GWAN, government will now enjoy a 73 percent reduction in the cost of internet despite an increase of 86 percent in capacity.
Dr. Mwanakatwe also stated that government has further been given a 90 percent reduction in cost of MPLS pricing, whilst capacity has increased by 400 percent.He explained that government was expected to make a total annual saving of about K95, 896,800 following the implementation of the project.
Government embarked on the ambitious project in 2012 to implement a national wide area network called Government Wide Area Network (GWAN) to interconnect all government ministries and agencies countrywide.This was in a bid to harmonize and consolidate internet services across the various individual ministries and agencies, which previously had independent internet providers.
Good step forward. We now look forward to a fully functional egovernment platform complete with IT enabled cities and services to the citizen!
And what will you do about the rampant wiretapping of private conversations?
Positive move, I hope by announcing you have taken into consideration all cyber security issues and what is being shared on same GWAN?
I trust this is news, but my worry is what has lead the government to do it today? I small a rat.
Well this is a very old project and has been on the cards since Mwanawasa in 2008. It has however been delayed due to the many reshuffles the office of the Secretary to the Cabinet has witnessed in the recent past. Otherwise well done GOVT for finally commissioning this project.
An intergreated network like that can become a curse if IT policies are not in place and if IT policies are not adhered to. Once an Education ministry is attacked by a trjan horse, it will copy itself through to cabinet and corrupt the whole GWAN. With PF’s lack of policy making i have witnessed so far, i foresee one minister visiting an insecure site thereby making the network vulnerable to attacks.