Dausi says Malawi govt to take mobile phone services to hard to reach areas

Minister of Information, Communications and Technology, Nicholas Dausi has said  government  is committed to improving accessibility of mobile phone services to  people living in hard to reach areas of the country.

Dausi made the remarks Wednesday when he visited  Chitipa Tele Centre at Chitipa Boma.

The Minister said mobile phone services play a  crucial role in facilitating easy flow of information, which he said was key in the enhancement of socioeconomic development of the country.

Dausi  expressed great concern to learn that some places in  Chitipa District do not have access to mobile phone services which becomes a big challenge for the residents to benefit from  some of the social services provided by the  District Council and its development partners.

The Minister made a strong assurance that government is going to provide mobile phone services to the deprived areas as soon as possible to alleviate the problem.

He said government will engage TNM and Airtel mobile providers to install their networks in all deprived hard to reach areas  to ease communication challenges.

“Government appreciates the necessity of providing mobile phone services in all parts of the country, irrespective of their geographical terrain , to enhance easy communication, which is key for sustainable socioeconomic development of the country,” Dausi said.

On the Tele Centre, The Minister said it was the wish of government to establish one stop service centres in all the districts and other strategic places so that people can electronically access important services at one place and within easy reach.

Dausi summed up his Chitipa trip with a rally at Chitipa Boma, where he assured the people that DPP government has an agenda of  developing all parts of the country.

Senior Post Master for Chitipa Post Office, Carstens Mang’amba told the Minister that vast areas of Chief Mwaulambia, close to the border with Tanzania, do not have both TNM and Airtel networks.

He said the Tele  Centre provide services such as internet ,printing, photo copying, scanning, among other computer related services, faces challenges such as shortage of computers, shortage of furniture and lack of a generatorw which frustrates  the operations of the centre.

Chief Mwaulambia lamented that his subjects are accessing a Tanzanian Vodacom network to call colleagues and relatives in Malawi, which he said was too expensive because they are making  international calls.

He said, “Access to mobile phone networks is a big challenge in some parts of my area. My subjects are forced to use foreign networks to phone their relatives in Malawi, which is very expensive .”

Selected areas and trading centers such as  Ifumbo, Zungwala Ilomba, Mbirima, Kapenda,  Njerengwa and Upiwu rely on  Vodacom network to make a phone call.

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