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Team formed to research Tanzania’s satellite needs
Deputy minister for Information and Communications Technology Kundo Mathew (second from right) receives information from NMB Bank officer Doreen Sawe (left) during his visit to the bank’s pavilion at the four-day annual conference of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) in Arusha yesterday. On the right is the president of ISACA Tanzania, Mr Peter Baziwe, and third from right is the secretary of ISACA Tanzania, Ms Rosevita Majani, along with other leaders. PHOTO I THE CITIZEN CORRESPONDENT
What you need to know:
- Presence of the satellite will enable Tanzania to gather country-specific information on weather, climate change and security
Arusha. The government has formed a team of experts to study the needs of the country’s proposed satellite as Tanzania joins some of its regional peers to ramp up efforts to have their own object in space to gather country-specific information on weather, climate change and security.
Gracing the Annual Audit Risk and Cybersecurity Conference here yesterday, the deputy minister for Information, Communications and Information Technology, Mr Kundo Mathew, said the country was not in a hurry and thus the need to gather information on the type of a satellite that would be required.
Mr Mathew’s statement comes almost four weeks after President Samia Suluhu Hassan revealed in Dar es Salaam that Tanzania would build its own satellite.
President Hassan said during Azam Media’s launch of digital terrestrial television (DTT) last month that Tanzania was well prepared for the project and that discussions had already started.
Once the satellite project sails through, Tanzania will be the fourth country in East Africa to hang its own satellite in the sky, after Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
“But Tanzania is not rushing into the project; we are taking time to identify our needs for the proposed National Satellite,” said Mr Mathew said yesterday.
“We are mulling the intended use for the Tanzanian Satellite, will it be just for patrolling our skies, or safeguarding our resources from the air; maybe also monitoring the country’s borders digitally?” pointed out Mr Mathew.
“We shall customize the satellite in accordance with the country’s needs,” he stated, adding that the move is part of the Malabo Convention which among other things, entails the protection of national airspaces.
Mr Mathew also mentioned the intention to deploy the envisaged satellite to aid and enforce penetration of the territorial digital communications.
“There are areas dotted with big hills and mountains where it becomes impossible for the fibre optic cables to be laid through, these are where the satellite will take over to spread digital waves,” he explained.
The deputy minister observed that the satellite can also be deployed to serve army communications and other security operations.
The proposed satellite compliments the 758 communication towers erected throughout Tanzania and the addition of 600 others soon to be planted in the country.
The 2023 ISACA Annual Audit, Risk and Cybersecurity Conference that brought together a diverse group of over 250 thought leaders and experts to share their insights and experiences on IS/IT audit, control, security, cybersecurity, governance, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).
According to Mr Halfan Semindu, the ISACA board member the delegates shared experience on what is developing across the world and what can be emulated in Tanzania, including issues of AI in Project Management in the era of Business Disruption
“ISACA is an international professional association focused on IT (information technology) governance,” said Mr Semindu who explained that training government officials on Cybersecurity was vital in ensuring the country is protected.
Some of the participating countries in the Arusha ISACA conference include Kenya, Nigeria, Commoro, Djibout and the host Tanzania.
Of recent a number of African countries have been ramping up their efforts to have their own satellites in space to gather country-specific information on weather, climate change and security.
Just last month, Kenya became the latest entrant in the league of 13 African nations that have so far sent at least one operational satellite to space.
Rwanda and Uganda launched their first working satellites in 2019 and 2022 respectively. Kenya’s satellite, which was launched last month is known as Taifa-1.
Taifa-1 is meant to help Kenya improve surveillance of its territory from outer space and to better monitor weather trends and environmental developments thereby informing appropriate preparation, interventions and sound agricultural policies.
Little progress
Though Tanzania is to become the fourth East African nation to launch a satellite, available information shows that Rwanda and Uganda have made little progress with theirs.
According to Uganda’s ministry of Science and Technology, the PearlAfricaSat-1 satellite deployed last November is yet to be fully operational due to incomplete setup and delays in construction of an earth station for command, control and management of the satellite.
“We are supposed to develop other systems on the ground to facilitate the satellite that we launched, and we are in the process of doing so,” Mr Bonny Omara, the project’s lead engineer, told journalists in a recent interview.
Uganda’s Science and Technology Minister Monica Musenero said the satellite was meant to provide research and observation data for solutions in weather forecast, border security, agriculture monitoring, land, water bodies, infrastructure planning, disaster prevention and mineral mapping – but it still can’t do all these.
In Rwanda, the information gathered is that the country’s first satellite Icyerekezo (Vision) that was launched in February 2019, was meant to provide internet access to rural schools. However, it is yet to deliver on the promise three years later.
