Internet blackout paralyses govt

STAFF WRITER

The enforcement of an internet blackout paralysed government business resulting in the bulk of the civil service failing to get their salaries on the stipulated dates.

On Tuesday, State Security minister Owen Ncube directed telecommunications firms to blackout internet as the stayaway called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions turned violent resulting in the destruction of property and the looting of shops.

The blackout was invoked in terms of the Interception of Communications Act. Internet was restored on Wednesday evening but social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remained blocked.

The move to blackout ended up having a ripple effect on government operations as it failed to execute its normal operations.

The internet shutdown also saw government, which the biggest employer, failing to pay salaries which were slated for the January 14 to 16 as the banking system was severely affected by this move.

Finance and Economic Development permanent secretary George Guvamatanga told Business Times that Treasury faced some challenges in dispatching salaries for civil servants in line with the gazetted dates as all systems were down because of internet blackout.

“The delays in payment of civil servants were simply an issue of systems, which were down. The systems here include government and banking systems which were generally down due to the internet blackout. I was called by the payments department notifying me of the system challenges so the delays have not been about non-availability of funds but all the systems were down,” Guvamatanga said.

The blackout internet had a massive negative impact on the economy as most companies in the private sector also failed to conduct transactions while communication remained hamstrung.

It is estimated that the country lost $15 million due to the blackout. Studies have revealed that internet blackouts can seriously damage any country’s economy and in 2016, the world lost at least $2,4 billion when governments intentionally shut down their countries’ networks.

Internet shutdowns have become much more frequent in Africa since 2015, with governments either totally cutting off the internet or blocking access to platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.

In 2016 alone, 11 countries disrupted internet communications. These include Uganda before crucial elections, during national exams in Algeria, and during antigovernment protests in Ethiopia. In 2017, Cameroon instituted a 93 day blackout in its English-speaking regions, and Togo shut down the internet to stifle protests against President Faure Gnassingbé.

Yet despite the costly nature of these temporary disruptions, it has been hard to fully approximate or estimate the impact they have on not only citizens but also on the economy in general.

In 2016, the Brookings Institution published a framework that calculated the costs by looking at the impact on the gross domestic product. The services firm Deloitte also released a report measuring the economic impact based on broadband usage and speed.

In the Brookings report, Darrell West, director of the think tank’s Centre for Technology Innovation, examined the economic effects of 81 internet shutdowns that took place in the span of a year, between summer 2015 and 2016. Based on the reduction in economic activity during the shutdowns, he estimated that they costed a minimum of $2,4 billion in Gross Domestic Product, globally.

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