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Billions down the drain on IT, says expert
By
Ayam Maeresa - 11-03-2003 |
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Billions of kwacha have gone down the drain as government and private companies invested in information technology (IT) to improve productivity but with no good results, an industrial expert has said.
Business Computer Services Limited managing director James Chimwaza said in an interview last Friday in Mangochi on the sidelines of a one-day seminar by leading global provider of computer products, Hewlett Packard (HP), for government officials and business leaders that investment in computers has largely been a waste in most corporate organisations.
“It’s the way the IT has been sold in the country,” said Chimwaza, who is also carrying out a research on computer usage in the industry. “There is a belief if you put a computer in a company, then a problem has been solved, when it fact a computer it’s just part of the solution.”
He said most firms have gone ahead to buy computer equipment without assessing the knowledge of the people intended to use them, which has resulted in staff still resorting to old manual methods of doing business.
He said worse still, some firms use computers as a simple of prestige as opposed to using them as a tool to advance business. He said the total sense of IT is to address the entire business process rather than “simply typing a letter”.
“We have reached a stage where reputations of institutions are becoming threatened and now begin to embrace IT in its total sense to get out of problems,” said Chimwaza.
He said the overall goal of IT should be to allow companies reduce the cost of doing business.
Government is seeking comments to draft a bill on information technology and communication policy meant to make the country a knowledge-based economy, where companies and government departments invest in IT to advance production processes and the flow of information.
Despite that government removed duty on computers to reduce their retail cost, it is still expensive to repair broken down computers because there is still a 55 percent duty on imported spares.
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