TECHNOLOGY-ZIMBABWE: Heading For The Y2K Crisis?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, Feb 18 1999 (IPS) - A lot of computers in use in Zimbabwe do not know what the year 2000 compliance is all about, and experts warn that unless adequate preparations are made, Zimbabwe is likely to roll back to 1900 come Jan 1, 2000.

A recent World Bank report says Zimbabwe’s computer networks are lagging behind even more poorer developing countries.

Zimbabwe is ranked among countries with a medium-to-low category awareness of the millennium bug, in the World Bank’s report which reviews the efforts taken by developing countries to deal with the problem.

While most industrial countries have devoted large budgets to deal with the imminent problem, it appears some people in Zimbabwe do not realise how big the year 2000 (Y2K) problem is, how near it is, or how ugly it might turn out to be.

The biggest culprit is the public sector. Private companies are making significant strides in their preparations.

In most of the public sector institutions visited by the World Bank team, “there is poor understanding of the problem and unsatisfactory or no plans for dealing with the problem.”

According to Edmore Tobaiwa, chief economist of Zimbabwe’s First Banking Corporation, government, state and municipalities are surprisingly playing ‘deaf and dumb’ to the not only predictable, but inevitable crash of an all-wired-up global civilisation – “a calamity that cannot simply be wished away”.

“Even in the 1997/98 and 1999 national budgets the government did not allocate resources to this crucial and potentially catastrophic, yet inevitable problem Zimbabwe has to seriously address in the next ten months,” says Tobaiwa.

Tobaiwa urged the government to carry surveys as to which parastatals, municipalities and sectors of industry and commerce are lagging behind in Y2K compliance.

“But unfortunately, we are having a classic scenario where all stakeholders are aware of a malicious virus violating the immunity of computer systems for which there is a cure, but it is very costly and has a finite deadline, yet very few enterprises and institutions are doing something about it,” explains Tobaiwa.

Of the 139 developing countries, only 15 percent have taken concrete steps to fix the problem whose magnitude is regarded to be the biggest in history.

One survey has revealed that UK companies anticipated spending more than half of their total information technology budgets for the next months on year 2000 projects.

In South Africa, the cost of upgrading systems to accommodate the century roll-over could be as high as R20-billion (one US dollar is equal to 6.11 Rand), year 2000 expert, Robin Guenier, has estimated.

In Zimbabwe, the figure could be close to 300 million Zimbabwe dollars (7.9 million US dollars). A severe complicating factor is the interdependence among systems around the globe. Concern is that systems that cater for the next century can be ‘infected’ by systems that do not.

According to Tobaiwa, from a global perspective, estimates of the problem show that between 300 and 600 billion lines of codes will have to be analysed and either discarded or rewritten. New systems may have to be purchased – each exercise will cost around 1,10 U.S. dollar per line, thereby making a 300 billion to 600 billion U.S. dollar nightmare.

The Zimbabwe National Committee for the Y2K bug needs about 75 million Zimbabwe dollars for research. On its part, the government says it has already spent 33 million Zimbabwe dollars (868,421 US Dollars) on preparations.

According to Peter Harrison, System Administrator for Samara Services, Zimbabwe’s leading internet service provider, there are a lot of programmes and old computers in use which are not year 2000 compliant.

“I know that a lot of IT (information technology) people are definitely aware of the Y2K problem in Zimbabwe. It is good to see that some companies who use other companies’ IT services are demanding proof of Y2K compliancy. This in itself is forcing companies to test themselves and take measures to achieve compliancy,” says Harrison.

“Whether or not we are headed for doomsday depends greatly on the level of integration of the computers with the various services we use and also whether or not problems arising will have a domino effect on other things,” Harrison told IPS.

“Another consideration is recovery time. Doomsday faults related to the Y2K bug would involve the death of people on any scale. For example, people place their life in computers’ hands for air travel, navigation and life support systems in hospitals,” he warns.

Another kind of ‘doomsday’ could be a financial one, and would probably be related to faults with banking computers.

According to Harrison, his organisation has embarked on a project to test for Y2K compliancy and to research and implement relevant solutions and backup plans. “As with everyone else, our immovable deadline is at 23:59:59 on the 31st of December 1999, but we hope to be ready well in advance.”