Monday, May 30, 2011

The Flaws of the Zimbabwe National Archives Act


It is a good thing that we have the National Archives Act in Zimbabwe but as I was reading through I found few weakness.Firstly,the act do not put the Provincial Archives or Records Centers under the control of the Archives Director,actually the act is silent on that.Its only that we have sincere and faithful regional archivist and records officers,if they were not they were going to make those centers private institutions

Secondly,the Zimbabwe Archives Act is silent on issues of Electronic Records.It doesn't explain how electronic records should be preserved despite the fact that government offices are generating a lot of electronic records in form of websites,emails,storage medias such as compact disks etc.The Archives Act should have put a standard under which electronic records should be created and maintained.It should also have directed what sort of electronic records are admissible in a court of law.

Thirdly,the Archives Act is unclear on the duties of the records committee,I mean its functions.It says this committee gives advice to the Archives Director on issues to do with records management.IT goes on to say some of the members of the Records Committee are appointed by the Archives Director from the Archives staff.How can a junior officer offer advice to his superior?Do you see it possible?

The National Archives Act is also silent on Records Appraisal.That means it can continue archiving obsolete records,meaning to say it will deny accepting records from agencies due to limited storage space.

The National Archives Act empowers the National Archives Director power over records created by any government depart or ministry but it seems he doest outright power because he needs the consent of the Minister responsible with that Ministry in order for his advice to be effected.That means that Archives law makes the Archives Director a Junior Officer of all Ministries .

The Archives Act places the National Archives of Zimbabwe under the Ministry of Home Affairs,do you think its a relevant ministry.I think the right Ministry is the Ministry of Information and Publicity.Where is the link between the Police and the Archives Institution? It means the Archives will receive insignificant attention from the Minister.

Am I wrong,I stand to be corrected. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES ACT NEED TO BE REVISITED

3 comments:

  1. Firstly,let me lodge in my sincere congratulations to the Zimbabwe Students of RAM alongside the key stakeholders in this information management industry for their great initiative of forming RAMSAZ. The benefits to the students and the country as a whole dont need to be over emphasised. There are some issues I would like to respond to, regarding this article. Most of the The e-records management can be comfortably handled by the National Information Policy. The policy will clearly outline the mandatory good procedure to be followed so as to ensure the maximum and efficient identification capture use appraisal storage and retrieval of information. Unfortunately even after knowing the importance of the policy, most African countries, if not all, dont have an operational information policy. Secondly It seems from the article, records and archives adminstration dont work together at the same level, which to me, they are one and same thing if different then very negligible. I therefore, opine that they need to be integrated and be led by one director to curb power misconceptions. About Archives Director being a junior officer to all ministries, Its indeed a burning issue because failure to have informatiƶn professionals in key decision making levels results to having vital plans not being implemented since there wont be that implimentational power and authority duely required. There is little we can do to change that, because most African government structure puts ministers top of Directors of key institutions. Hence, there is need for building a mutual understanding between information managers and all ministries .

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  2. The article has highlighted quite a number of important points that need to be addressed. Eventually there has to be a National Standard Protocol on how to appraise electronic records that are being vastly created by organisations to date. That is where the National Archives Act should come into play and ensure protection of agency information as we are all aware of the threats of online storage facilities. There is a need for urgent review of the Act for a better management systems country wide.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The article has highlighted quite a number of important points that need to be addressed. Eventually there has to be a National Standard Protocol on how to appraise electronic records that are being vastly created by organisations to date. That is where the National Archives Act should come into play and ensure protection of agency information as we are all aware of the threats of online storage facilities. There is a need for urgent review of the Act for a better management systems country wide.

    ReplyDelete