{"id":42975,"date":"2017-03-22T10:27:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T08:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=42975"},"modified":"2017-03-22T10:27:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T08:27:06","slug":"parliament-technology-eludes-local-technicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/03\/22\/parliament-technology-eludes-local-technicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliament technology eludes local technicians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Technicians at Parliament are failing to repair equipment that was installed in the House because the current consultant involved in renovations does not have the technical know-how of some of the gadgets that were installed, <em>The Daily Times <\/em>has learnt.<\/p>\n<p>Staff have disclosed that most of the equipment in the House is either outdated or too advanced, making it difficult to use, maintain and replace, as the technicians do not know where the Chinese contractors, who constructed the building, got the equipment.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking during a tour the Media Committee of Parliament had on Monday, Principal Officer at the Audio-visual Production Department, Gerald Mserembo, said, currently, the House is using analogue system, which makes it difficult to give a video signal to media houses when Parliament is in session.<\/p>\n<p>He said this forces them to allow media practitioners to get inside the chamber, contrary to regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Mserembo also said electronic voting cannot be done in the House because of the type of equipment they have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur equipment was installed by the Chinese [contractors]. There were no consultations at the time they were installing them. The challenge is that those who installed the equipment are gone and those manning it are different people and they say they do not know where they [Chinese contractors] got it from and that there is need to replace it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He further said there is need for the Chinese to come up with a clear maintenance policy of the infrastructure they build to avoid similar challenges that Parliament is facing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe equipment [manuals] are in Chinese language which is a challenge to our technicians. We have few technicians in most of the sections from the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) to the security department and most of the computers that we use are outdated. We are in dire need of new equipment and training on how to maintain the equipment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the development, acting chairperson of the committee, Aisha Adams, said her team is shocked that the new Parliament Building is using such equipment.<\/p>\n<p>The $40 million Chinese Government-funded building was inaugurated in May, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technicians at Parliament are failing to repair equipment that was installed in the House because the current consultant involved in renovations does not have the technical know-how of some of the gadgets that were installed, The Daily Times has learnt. Staff have disclosed that most of the equipment in the House is either outdated or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42982,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42975\/revisions\/42982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}