Online Reporter
Judith Phiri,Zimpapers Business Hub
THE Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services Dr Tatenda Mavetera has called for one harmonised National Data Centre that will have a Tier four capacity to be manned by them as they work towards the whole of government approach.
A Tier four data centre offers the highest level of reliability and redundancy, designed to be fully fault-tolerant with 99,995 percent uptime.
This means it has redundant systems for all critical components, allowing for maintenance without service interruption and ensuring that even multiple simultaneous failures will not impact operations.
Speaking at the ongoing 2026 Pre-Budget Seminar in Bulawayo, the Minister said there one no need to have two data centres for the Government and the other for their Ministry.
“We are going to have a communication with the e-Government unit whereby we need to really work with a whole of government approach. We need to make sure that we cannot have a data center in the e-Government and then we have another data center being manned by the Ministry of ICT,” she said.
“If we need to be very honest with each other, let’s have one data center which is manned by the Ministry and we work towards the whole of government approach, which is quite evident.”
She said two separate data centres would delay the future intelligence strategy implementation which they have worked out with more smart solutions.
Minister Mavetera said they have an artificial intelligence (AI) smart solutions strategy which includes them working on data analytics centers looking at smart ecosystems.
“This cannot progress if we are not funded. The delays in Zimbabwe’s participation in the fourth Industrial revolution can limit innovation in Government, agriculture and service delivery. Again, this will limit digital inclusion and capacity building. We now are talking about upskilling our workforce even in the public sector.
This can only be done if we have got programmes which remain fundamental to the development of our workforce,” she added.
She bemoaned the gradual decline in funds that were being allocated to the Ministry stating that the ICT sector was pivotal for socio economic transformation, inclusive growth and job creation.
The Minister said for the budget allocation versus the bid, they agreed to Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG)10.7 billion for operations for the year and they got ZWG644 million.
She said: “Allow me to round off the figure, so what it means is that we have been given 5,96 percent for budget and then there again the overall budget that we have, it means that we have got 0.2 percent. Yes, we contribute about 10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), but if you look at the overall budget, this is our allocation, it’s on 0.22 percent.”
Minister Mavetera said there has been quite a significant decline in what they were allocated last year and what they have been given, as well as in the trends over the years.
On projects the Ministry has, she said they were 21 and new ones were few, while there was a funding gap in the budget for the amount that they have been given.
“You realize that we are talking about ZWG5.6 billion there and then you look at the amount which has been given. Definitely, it really tells a lot, it reflects on how much we are on a deficit as a Ministry. The impact of the funding gap is going to stall our project and cause a lot of delays.
We have been speaking a lot about our 40 national data center expansion and the new city data center which have really been stalled,” she said.
