I was beginning to get excited about Guyana’s future in ICTs, now what happens next?

TIMES INT'L

 

Dear Editor,

As a young IT student, I am very unhappy that the government’s plan to improve the country’s ICTs-related infrastructure is now being threatened. From what I gather in the media, the fibre-optic cable from Brazil, through the border town of Lethem and which is on its way to the coast is now in limbo with the combined opposition, the Alliance For Change (AFC) and the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), cutting budgetary allocation to the project to Gy$ 1.

I recall that the government had embarked on two projects: the first is the Lethem to Georgetown project which will connect to Brazil, and provide internet access for e-government purposes. The authorities have reported that this project is about 85 per cent complete with all the fibre optic cables in the country; however, there is still the need to put in internal equipment and connect the cables.

The other project, which is much bigger, is to run a fibre optic cable from Moleson Creek to Parika, then do a crossing for access to the Essequibo Coast. This project also has with it a wireless component for access to the network, which will be through the long-term revolutionary 4G cellular technology as well as an e-government data centre which will be built and established at Providence.

Also, the e-governance programme is part of government’s overall ICT thrust to provide internet access to indigenous communities in order to facilitate the hinterland aspect of the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme. These are all excellent projects and now I am not sure what will happen to them.

What are the reasons for the cuts? I wish the opposition would come out and state clearly what was the rationale for taking this action. As someone involved in IT, I was beginning to get excited about the fact that our country will begin to be transformed in terms of ICTs.

Now with the budget cuts instituted by the opposition, works to ensure their completion are likely to be stymied. I cannot see the reason for the opposition to cut the budgetary allocations to this project, except to say that it was based on politics. This is indeed unfortunate as the projects were meant to benefit every Guyanese whether they voted PPP or not.

Yours faithfully,

Rekha Singh

 

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