Residents and travelers coming to Tanzania may no longer need to rely on Google Maps to find their way in any part of the country, because there is a more localized location navigation application.
That is among the country’s achievements on digitizing postal and communication services as listed during the ongoing Pan-African Postal Union’s 41st Administrative Council meetings taking place in Arusha.
“We are speeding up to ensure that the development of the country’s communication services goes in sync with the African Agenda 2063,” stated the Minister of Information, Communication and Information Technology, Nape Nnauye.
Among Tanzania’s remarkable achievements is the country’s version of ‘Google Map.’
The Deputy Minister of Information, Communication and Information Technology, Engineer Kundo Andrea Mathew explained that the development of the National Physical Address and navigation app started way back in 2010.
“The NaPA app and embedded software were entirely built from scratch by Tanzanian experts, mostly young people,” the Deputy Minister stated.
But why should one use the National Locational App while there is the tried and tested Google Map and Google Earth?
“Because Google applications do not cover all territories, they only concentrate on major national roads,” explained the Deputy Minister.
Apparently, the NaPA navigation platform maps the entire East African Region as well, not just Tanzania, which should come in handy for people living along border precincts.
Also, from its initial test drive the now deployed NaPA navigation system seems to include practically all terrains.
Each remote spot of the country has been covered within its graphics, displayed in two versions, standard and overlayed terrains.
“But it also provides additional information such as nearest schools, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, gas stations, offices and even village roads,” said Engineer Mathew.
The digital location application can be downloaded from Google Play and Apple Store free of charge, and comes without those hidden ‘in app’ purchase schemes that have been defeating the purpose of other similar apps.
On Google Play Store, the NaPA application gets an average rating of 4.1 from a total of 35 reviewers at the time when this article was being written.
The majority of users say the interface is user friendly though there are others who believe the graphics still leave a lot to be desired.
Tanzania also has another application for international commerce entailing buying, selling and ordering products within the country and overseas, this is managed by the Postal Services (Posta).
Speaking at the PAPU event, the Postmaster General Macrice Daniel Mbodo explained that the ‘Posta Kiganjani,’ (Postal Services on your palm) essentially replaces the old mail letter service as it is more advanced with ability to detect the location of the particular user for fast delivery.
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