By Vincent Gunde
The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) says National Address System-My address is a key pillar of a developed society saying it is the ability of the government to find its people and for the people to find each other in a structured way.
The MACRA said Malawi is establishing a comprehensive addressing system that will have multiple use by many stakeholders bringing about a more organized way of life and this will modernize cities, towns and villages and it will provide an audit of residents and their localities.
The organization said Malawi does not have a comprehensive addressing system that identifies a person by street, building and house number saying as a result of this, provision of various services is compromised.
Introducing NAS-My address to the district stakeholders in Dowa, MACRA’S Director General Daud Suleman, said according to the Communications Act of 2016 section 124 the authority shall allocate, manage and regulate addresses and postcodes, streets and roads to be identified and given names, houses numbered with big buildings named, marked and mapping.
Suleman said NAS is a multi-sectoral stakeholder driven national project with key components such as addressing standards, National Postcodes System, National Addressing Database, physical infrastructure, Geographical Information System, public awareness and sensitization.
He said NAS has economic benefits such as increased revenue to government through tax collection, improving billing processes for utility bills leading to increased revenue available to expand services, facilitation of home delivery of service, enhanced tourism and increased accuracy in collection of census information, among others.
The Director General said NAS has some social benefits such as effective response to emergency situations by fire, police and Ambulance services, provision of verifiable proof of residence, improved provision of health services, among others.
“The pilot phase of NAS was completed, new addressing standards developed, Postcodes developed GIS mapping and Data extraction is on-going, public awareness and sensitization on-going and the national roll-out is on -going,” said Suleman.
He said NAS is meeting some challenges such as finances, data and vandalism of infrastructure saying MACRA is expecting councils to lead in street naming, active participation in digitalization, physical verification, physical infrastructure placement and data collection.
Suleman said NAS has covered plot areas in Blantyre city, national roll-out in the cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba and all bomas in Northern Region such as Chitipa, Karonga, Rumphi, Mzimba, Nkhatabay and Likoma saying NAS is for all sectors of the economy.
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