By Salome Gangire

Neno, August 27, Mana: Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has appealed to people in Neno district to welcome National Addressing System (NAS) project that will be implemented in the district as a comprehensive system of street and building naming and house numbering to facilitate an efficient service delivery system to recipients of service and goods.

MACRA Director of Postal and e-commerce, Kondwani Kachika made the call during stakeholders meeting in the district on Monday and further called on the people to avoid vandalising street signs that will be put in place as part of NAS project, which is set to commence soon.

Some of NAS benefits include; provision of verified proof of residence and increased service delivery due to enhanced address accuracy and increased accuracy in census information collection.

The Director of Postal and e-commerce therefore said vandalism of road signs and other physical infrastructure will be a draw back to the objectives of the NAS.

“The project has been marred by vandalism as people of ill intentions vandalise these signs and this is a huge draw back to the project,” Kachika said, adding that the street naming Malawi has adopted has many social economic benefits to communities.

He therefore appealed to the Neno District Council and community leadership to further sensitise people in the district of the social economic importance of NAS once it rolls out.

NAS Data Base Officer, Charles Sabola said NAS objective is to ensure that each and every physical location in Malawi has an address and is in line with Section 124 of the Communications Act of 2016.

Neno District Council Chairperson, Joseph Chiphaliwali hailed MACRA for introducing the project in the district saying NAS will facilitate an easy way of locating places unlike the current situation where residents use other features that make strangers fail to identify their accurate locations.

“The project will modernise villages as they will be well and orderly numbered for easy identification,” he added.

The project was piloted in Blantyre in December 2016 and later rolled out to the northern region and later to the rest of the districts.

NAS has six components namely; National Addressing Standards, National Postal System, National Address and Postcode Database, Physical Infrastructure, Geographic Information System (GIS) Support for the Addressing Database and Public Awareness.