DICT staff lands top IT post at Comesa |22 June 2016

Lanka Dorby, director general for Information Technology in the Department of Information and Communications Technology, is taking on a new post as director of Information Technology (IT) for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa region soon.

And before she leaves on July 1 to take up her new post at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) secretariat in Lusaka, Zambia where she will be based, she paid a courtesy call on President James Michel at State House yesterday.

The president congratulated and wished her success in her new post. Her position at Comesa is for three years.

She was accompanied on her visit to State House by DICT principal secretary Benjamin Choppy.

Speaking to the press after her meeting with the head of state, Mrs Dorby said Seychelles is her priority in the bloc but she has to cater for all 19 member states in the IT field.

“As you know one of the mottos of Comesa is ‘regional prosperity through economic integration’. As director of IT me and my team need to help Comesa achieve that using ICT as a tool,” she said.

She remarked all member states should be helped to achieve that as not all of them are at the same level with regard to IT.

Mrs Dorby said the first thing she has to do is a feasibility study to assess each member state’s level in ICT. Then she will have to come up with a strategy. It must be noted that Seychelles is of a much higher level in ICT for Africa.

“But as the director of IT, I will have to coordinate all the 19 countries of the Comesa region,” she said.

Before landing that post, Mrs Dorby was interviewed, sat an examination by nine principal secretaries chaired by the secretary general of the bloc. Five member states were then shortlisted.

“Seychelles succeeded and I am happy about it,” said Mrs Dorby.

Comesa has 19 member countries and Seychelles is one of them.

The bloc’s vision and mission is to be a fully integrated, internationally competitive regional economic community with high standards of living for all its people ready to merge into an African Economic Community.

Comesa endeavours to achieve sustainable economic and social progress in all member states through increased co-operation and integration in all fields of development particularly in trade, customs and monetary affairs, transport, communication and information, technology, industry and energy, gender, agriculture, environment and natural resources.