The announcement provided some encouraging news for the energy industry and private actors in particular. President Hichilema stated that private sector actors will be able to deliver power to their clients and prevent ZESCO from getting into unsustainable power purchase deals.

“To promote competition and allow for non-discriminatory access to electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure by the private sector, the Government is in the process of implementing an Open Access Regime.”

Notably, until recently, electricity supply has never been considered a problem in official discourse in Zambia. When there was not enough electricity to serve all consumers in 2015, this situation changed. Cuts and rationing have occurred since.

Zambia is renowned for having an abundance of waterways and enormous natural resources, and it has long relied on hydropower as the main source of its electricity production. Its centralized model, though, has recently fallen short of the nation’s rising energy needs.

The government’s proposed strategy could be crucial in meeting the country’s expanding energy needs. the act of granting unlimited access to the transmission and distribution network for electricity. As a framework for promoting competition in the electrical market and allowing customers to select their suppliers, an open-access method has been proposed.

The national utility ZESCO was praised by President Hichilema for signing several Power Purchase Agreements. ZESCO continues to be a crucial component of the success of open access since it was instrumental in allowing firms like GreenCo to enter the market, participate as a new buyer and trader in the renewable energy sector, and join the Southern African Power Pool as its 18th member.

The Ilute Solar PV project in Western Province, Zambia’s first open-access project, is being implemented thanks to GreenCo’s partnership with ZESCO.

The Illute Project will be the first of its kind in Africa. Ilute will pay ZESCO for its system operation services while selling all the generated power to GreenCo.  Leading investors will contribute $40 million in foreign direct investment to the project’s construction, demonstrating their support for the open-access electricity regime in Zambia. 

The delegation, led by Mr Austin Sichinga, the by a Director from Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority, disclosed that they decided to “travel thus far” after comparing other African countries’ models and found Nigeria’s model most adoptable and adaptable.

He said, “We are quite eager to engage and learn as much as we can here; and if you see how diverse our team is and the portfolios we traveled with, it is an indication of how much we value the project as we intend to implement it for secured transactions and ensure we are moving on the right path.”

The Director informed that it is the desire of the Zambian government to move on digital path and focus on trade with other partners adding that “one of the things that has to happen is ensuring we are ready with services and interaction with the various partners across the borders.”

While acknowledging that the implementation of the country PKI is long overdue, Mr Sichinga maintained that Zambia’s President has made it known that he wants a non-stop border that will enhance data exchange, secured platforms across institutions.

“The project is long overdue. We have to implement before that conversation on trade and interactions across various platforms within the country and across can happen. So we are really eager to engage and create partnerships so that we can begin to learn from one another,” he said.

In his remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, the NITDA’s Director General, commended Zambian government for taking the initiatives to understudy the Nigeria’s National Public Key infrastructure declaring that NITDA believes that no one succeeds in isolation. He said, “We need to work as a team, so as Africans, I think this is high time for us to come together; come up with our digital strategy because digital is beyond boundaries, it is borderless.”

Inuwa stated that the Agency has developed Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan, (SRAP) 2021-2024 with seven strategic pillars, and PKI fall under the Developmental Regulation.

He noted that regulation from the Agency’s perceptive is “any intervention that can influence the business social or market behaviour” adding that NITDA regulates to enable innovation and not to stifle it.

Speaking further, the NITDA’s boss explained that the Agency is developing a regulation on PKI because the law that established the Agency empowered it to do sub-ilegislation.

He said the Agency has developed the business model but it would not get into the operational aspect of it: “we don’t want to get our hands into operation. We provide only the Certificate Authority (CA) route. We will have some sectoral CAs that will provide the certificate for different sectors.”

“We are looking at how we can commercialise some services like the digital trust as well, because that will also help build trust and confidence for e-commerce because even in Nigeria, we have this challenge; most of the western countries don’t trust our websites because nobody’s certified them. So you need the PKI solution to certify those websites to build trust publicly,” he added.

Inuwa asserted that the Agency would not dabble into the operational aspect of PKI because the Agency is established as a regulator but would put a product development unit in place because there is need build more solutions.

While taking them through other strategic pillars of SRAP, the Director General tasked them to develop policy documents that would serve as guide in monitoring an tracking progresses in the implementation of the PKI and other digital transformation they are working on.

Inuwa recalled that Ghana, Gambia and Kenya had visited the Agency to learn from what it is doing noting that those visits are motivation to the Agency because it shows that those “moderate things” are being acknowledged by people outside the country. 

He however disclosed that the Agency is working on developing a playbook that would be shared among other African countries in order to achieve a strong digital economy for the continent.   

While enjoined the delegation to initiate approaches that would make Zambia digitally independent, the Director General advised the country to build the capacity of its citizens.

Earlier, Dr Usman Abdullahi Gambo, NITDA’s Director of Information Technology Infrastructure Solution, while giving an overview of the Agency’s mandates disclosed that the Agency is saddled with the three major functions of developing, regulating and playing advisory role to the government on Information Technology in the country.

He said the Agency’s journey to the implementation of the NPKI started as far back as 2012 which has culminated into the substantial progress it has recorded.     

The Cyber Security Department which one of its functions is the management of the NPKI, in a presentation to the delegation said NITDA is in the best position to act as the National Root Certificate Authority because the Agency remains the Information Technology regulator for the country.

The presentation which was handled by the Acting Director and the Assistance Director in the Department, Dr. Lawal Muhammed and Mr. Ahmed Yahusa respectively revealed the benefits, architecture, policy, implementation strategy, type of certificates and stakeholders of the NPKI.      

The highlight of the engagement was the tour of facilities in the Agency.