The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) says the National Address System (NAS) is a key pillar of a developed society as it will ease the need to have all Malawians aligned with the current technology trend.
Introducing NAS-My address to the district stakeholders in Dowa, MACRA’S Director General Daud Suleman, said according to the Communications Act of 2016 section 124 the authority shall allocate, manage and regulate addresses and postcodes, streets and roads to be identified and given names, houses numbered with big buildings named, marked and mapping.
Suleman said NAS is a multi-sectoral stakeholder-driven national project with key components such as addressing standards, National Postcodes System, National Addressing Database, physical infrastructure, Geographical Information System, public awareness and sensitization.
He added that NAS has economic benefits such as increased revenue to the government through tax collection, improving billing processes for utility bills leading to increased revenue available to expand services, facilitation of home delivery of service, enhanced tourism and increased accuracy in the collection of census information, among others.
The Director General said NAS has some social benefits such as effective response to emergencies by fire, police and Ambulance services, provision of verifiable proof of residence, and improved provision of health services, among others.
“The pilot phase of NAS was completed, new addressing standards developed, Postcodes developed GIS mapping and Data extraction is ongoing, public awareness as well as sensitization is ongoing and the national roll-out is is also ongoing,” said Suleman.
He said NAS is meeting some challenges such as finances, data and vandalism of infrastructure saying MACRA is expecting councils to lead in street naming, active participation in digitalization, physical verification, physical infrastructure placement and data collection.
Suleman indicated that NAS has covered plot areas in the cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba and all bomas in the Northern Region such as Chitipa, Karonga, Rumphi, Mzimba, Nkhatabay and Likoma saying NAS is for all sectors of the economy.
He further said that Malawi is establishing a comprehensive addressing system that will have multiple uses by many stakeholders bringing about a more organized way of life and this will modernize cities, towns as well as villages and it will provide an audit of residents and their localities.
Suleman also highlighted that Malawi does not have a comprehensive addressing system that identifies a person by street, building and house number saying as a result of this, the provision of various services is compromised.
