There are concerns that Community Information Centers being rolled by telecommunications regulator, Potraz are not being fully utilized.
This was revealed by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe(Potraz), director USF, Poastal and Courier Services, Kennedy Dewera at an engagement workshop with ZOCC in Kadoma on Thursday.
“These CICs are not being fully utilized and it will be desirable to have many people using these,”Mr Dewera said.
He challenged members of the Zimbabwe Online Content Creators(ZOCC) to produce many local productions to woo communities to utilise CICs.
” Right now these CICs are shells probably because of the fact that most of the content on internet is not relevant to these communities.
“This is where you as content creators should then come in to bridge the gap,” he added.
According to Mr Dewera, they have established ‘gaming’ corners in some CICs to curb drug abuse.
“Realising the rampant abuse of drugs among youths we have created gaming corners in some CICs where young people can play games and this will help them to be occupied to fight off drug abuse,” revealed Mr Dewera.
ZOCC president Tonderai ‘Toneo’ Rutsito said his organisation is determined to abide by ethical and professional standards.
“Our members are professional content creators who want to be guided by ethical standards and are ready to provide credible content.
“We also note the efforts by government in crafting some progressive media laws but we are concerned with some provisions in the Data Protection Act which makes our work as content creators a bit difficult,”said Toneo.