This is but one example of the mushrooming of business conducted over the Internet, which in Namibia and Africa as a whole mostly includes mobile devices.
The escalating number of businesses on the World Wide Web has prompted the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to draft the Use of Electronic Transactions and Communications Bill.
Speaking at an MTC function in Windhoek yesterday, ICT Minister, Joel Kaapanda, noted that the new legislation would assist Namibia to move forward according to a new paradigm of conducting business and delivery of government services via the Internet.
"The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is vigorously executing government policy to place Namibia on the right path towards the promotion, use and growth of ICTs for development," explained Kaapanda.
The Managing Director of MTC, Miguel Geraldes, confirmed that ICT companies are experiencing a 'data tsunami', as both customers and businesses convert to sending more data compared to making voice calls.
"Consumers are expected to use 20 times more mobile data from 2011 to 2016, while enterprises are expected to use 12 times more mobile data during the same period," Geraldes said yesterday during a breakfast gathering at a Windhoek hotel.
Kaapanda added that the new legislation would include recognizing electronic contracts and electronic signatures as binding agreements. The Bill will also make provision to include electronic data as being eligible in court as material evidence.
"The realisation strikes me every day that more than half the Namibian population uses sophisticated mobile technology to manage their communications, and to increasingly conduct money transactions. The nature of such transactions is becoming increasingly intangible, with a lessening of paperwork and manual documentation being increasingly evident. It is this reality which this law will want to promote and in this manner serve to create certainty and trust, and at the same time, to regulate its usage for the retrieval and storage of information," Kapaanda informed an ICT symposium recently.
Speaking at an MTC function in Windhoek yesterday, ICT Minister, Joel Kaapanda, noted that the new legislation would assist Namibia to move forward according to a new paradigm of conducting business and delivery of government services via the Internet.
"The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is vigorously executing government policy to place Namibia on the right path towards the promotion, use and growth of ICTs for development," explained Kaapanda.
The Managing Director of MTC, Miguel Geraldes, confirmed that ICT companies are experiencing a 'data tsunami', as both customers and businesses convert to sending more data compared to making voice calls.
"Consumers are expected to use 20 times more mobile data from 2011 to 2016, while enterprises are expected to use 12 times more mobile data during the same period," Geraldes said yesterday during a breakfast gathering at a Windhoek hotel.
Kaapanda added that the new legislation would include recognizing electronic contracts and electronic signatures as binding agreements. The Bill will also make provision to include electronic data as being eligible in court as material evidence.
"The realisation strikes me every day that more than half the Namibian population uses sophisticated mobile technology to manage their communications, and to increasingly conduct money transactions. The nature of such transactions is becoming increasingly intangible, with a lessening of paperwork and manual documentation being increasingly evident. It is this reality which this law will want to promote and in this manner serve to create certainty and trust, and at the same time, to regulate its usage for the retrieval and storage of information," Kapaanda informed an ICT symposium recently.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Edgar Brandt
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 19.02.2012
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