BY SIFISO NHLABATSI
LOBAMBA – Minister of Information, Communications and Technology Savannah Maziya says the National Data Governance Policy is expected to be completed before the end of the year, as government moves to strengthen the protection and management of national data.
Maziya made the commitment during the Senate Portfolio Committee First Quarter Performance Report Debate after Senator Lizzy Nkosi pressed the Ministry on progress in finalising the policy.
The National Data Governance Policy is currently being developed by the Ministry and is intended to harmonise and protect national data.
Nkosi described the policy as an urgent matter, saying Eswatini was particularly exposed when it came to the protection of its data.
She urged the Minister to ensure that the policy was completed before she leaves office.
“This is where the country is most exposed,” Nkosi said.
The former Minister of Health also raised concerns about the value of national health data, referring to discussions where senators had heard that Ghana had allegedly been offered substantial amounts of money for its health data.
Nkosi said Ghana had refused to sell the data, highlighting the importance of protecting information that could reveal the diseases affecting a country and the medicines required by its population.
She said access to such information could potentially give those obtaining the data knowledge about which medicines would be needed, sold or manufactured for a particular country.
Responding to the concerns, Maziya assured senators that the Ministry was working towards completing the National Data Governance Policy before the end of 2026.
“I can assure Senators that we are hoping, planning that this will be done before the end of the year,” Maziya said.
The Minister explained that finalising the policy would also help government determine the appropriate legislative route for strengthening data governance.
She said once the policy was in place, the Ministry would be able to assess whether data governance required its own specific legislation or whether the necessary provisions could instead be incorporated into an existing law through amendments.
“What will then give us is that we will have a purview as to whether is this something that we need to do as its own special law or there is a need to amend an existing law and include this in that amended law,” Maziya said.
The policy is one of several policy and legislative initiatives being pursued by the Ministry during the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year.
According to the Ministry’s First Quarter Performance Report, government also produced a draft postal sector policy which is ready for stakeholder validation.
The Ministry further submitted draft Regulations for the Computer Crime and Cybercrime Act to the Attorney General’s Office as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s response to cybercrime.
Draft regulations for the National Archives and Records Services Act of 2023 were also submitted to the Attorney General’s Office, while draft National Research Council Regulations, 2026 were formulated and the National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy was reviewed.
Maziya’s commitment on the National Data Governance Policy comes as the Ministry continues its broader digital transformation agenda.
During the quarter, the Ministry reported progress in infrastructure and connectivity, including the expansion of rural connectivity, improvements to international internet capacity and continued rollout of fibre connectivity.
The Ministry also reported that the Government in Your Hand mobile application had been expanded with six additional services, including payments for travel documents, passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates and trading licence renewals.
Nkosi also commended the Ministry for what she described as the application of the Nkwe mandate and said its financial performance indicated that the Ministry had planned its budget well when considering the amount spent during the reporting period.
The Ministry was allocated a recurrent budget of E356.97 million for the 2026/27 financial year, with E90.6 million released during the first quarter. By June 30, actual expenditure stood at E69.27 million, representing an absorption rate of 76 per cent of released funds.
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