Physical addressing to ease access to public services

THE government is considering drafting laws that would enable Tanzanians use their street addresses to introduce them and locate their residences when seeking public services, which require introductory letter from local government.

Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology Nape Nnauye has revealed that government was in the process of coming up with laws of National Physical Addressing (NaPA) for that purpose.

“The next step is the drafting of laws to enable citizens to use their legal residential address as a guarantee in various activities including borrowing loans from banks and police issues,” Mr Nape said.

Speaking over the weekend through the government’s clubhouse, Mr Nape said the residential address will be used as identification instead of using a letter from local government chairperson(s) in various places including the police and bank isssues.

Mr Nape added that the NaPA system has been created by Tanzanians and has included many more local areas that are not available through Google map.

“The ministry created a digital system of National Physical Addressing (NaPA) which has been implemented in many places over the country including people’s residents, hospitals, shops, schools, banks and other government and private institutions,” he added.

Moreover, the minister said the NaPA will help to boost the digital economy in the country by enabling citizens to sell and buy goods and services online.

“Tanzania Postal Corporation (TPC) has signed an agreement with a private company called Tutume Worldwide Limited to support the transportation of biological specimens from remote areas to centres with medical laboratory facilities,” he noted.

He further elaborated that the TPC which currently has more than 800 online stores, is in the process of negotiating with Alibaba and Amazon companies for online business of exporting and importing goods from citizens.

On the other hand, the Minster said NaPA system will not only be used by the TPC but also by other private e-commerce service providers.

“The system uses the Swahili language but later it will be improved by adding other languages ​​including English, French and Arabic so that the citizens and foreigners can search for nearby services they want based on normal transportation including bicycles, motorcycles and cars,” the Minister added.

Speaking about the challenges that emerged in the implementation of NaPA system, Mr Nape said the government has spent a long time to make people understand the importance of the system because many citizens did not have idea about it.