Taxpayer assault and battery

Jul 12, 2015 News

By Lance Hinds
I believe that with the constant pounding we get every day with news about billions needed, billions allegedly missing or misspent etc., there may be a tendency for it to become all a blur. This might therefore explain why the news over the past week regarding the demise of part of a very critical, national project passed with what I consider to be very little notice.

Lance Hinds

I refer specifically to the estimated $7 billion e-governance project that was launched in 2011 and in particular, the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex (DWDM) Long Haul Fibre Project connecting Guyana to Brazil.
The nation has been advised that 40% of the fibre optic cable is damaged and furthermore too expensive to fix. In response to this, a request was made by the Government for a comprehensive report from the E-Governance Unit on the entire project.
This is a positive step in terms of clarity and transparency, since over US$5 million (G$1 billion) of our taxpayer dollars was spent on this component of the project. We certainly received enough information over the years in the local media to come to the technical conclusion that this component went up to and way beyond death’s door some time ago.
The installation of a fibre optic cable over our type of hinterland terrain is a delicate, complicated matter to begin with and requires experience. Poorly laid cable, and the allegedly questionable remedial work would have adversely affected the quality of the fibre, and by extension, the level of bandwidth required. The fundamental question for me and many of my colleagues in the local technology sector is how on earth this was allowed to get to this unfortunate state of affairs in the first instance.
Let us begin with the design. One would assume that the coordinators took into account the nature of the terrain from Georgetown to Brazil, and it was on that basis that the overall design, along with required technical resources and specifications, would have been established.
If this was done, why would some of the selected contractors not have the necessary equipment to perform the required tasks? Would this not have been established in the tender document in the first instance? What was the quality of technical supervision performed on behalf of the client? Shouldn’t the difficulties that were encountered have been identified sooner?
It is also intriguing and a bit disturbing that one of the largest communication companies in the world was also part of this implementation. Any post mortem process should state clearly the role of Huawei Technologies in the design, implementation and supervision of this project.
There is also the issue of the cost. The information given us is that the cost of fixing the cable would be roughly around US$20 million. This is certainly too expensive if one takes into consideration that we were told on quite a few occasions that Government invested US$5 million.
But how is this possible? A rough calculation of the cost of repairs amounts to about US$37/metre. I imagine that this pricing is based on the assumption that they would be using the undamaged portions of the cable and more than likely relaying the significant amounts of it as part of the overall remedial works.
Let us now develop a scenario where the cable to Brazil was rebuilt from scratch. In view of the information provided about the repairs, we will add 20% to the cost. That makes it about US$45/metre to lay the new cable. The overall cost of laying a new cable would therefore be in the vicinity of US$25.2 million.
This brings us squarely back to the Government’s US$5 million investment which works out to US$9/metre of cable.
I may be a simple computer scientist and some may argue not one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, but could it be even remotely possible that an enterprise level fibre optic cable can be laid in that terrain at that price?
It was quite interesting that the head of the E-Governance Unit did say in 2013 (KNews, August 13) that the contractors underestimated the work required and actually complained about the amount that they bid. He also indicated that cost of the project would increase since it was likely that a tender would have to go international tender. Let us return, however, to the original question. On what basis was the US$5 million budgeted?  Also, what would the contractors have based their bids on? Is there perchance, more to the mortar that just the pestle?
I have never been able to wrap my head around the concept of building a cable to Brazil in the first instance. Part of this maybe is because fundamentally I do not believe that governments should be in the business of maintaining huge ICT infrastructure.
I also felt that in view of the existence of the exclusive license with GT&T that there were certainly other priorities to address. I certainly got an initial impression that the cable would be part of the e-governance project.  It would certainly have fit in with e-health and e-library initiatives that were being touted. I still struggled with the overall concept, however, because I still couldn’t see how this kind of infrastructure can be successfully maintained on an annual basis as a public good.
This notion was disabused by the both the Project Manager and the E-Governance Manager, both of whom in 2014 made a clear distinction between the E-Governance project and the fibre optic connectivity to Brazil. The Prime Minister was also quoted in Parliament as saying that neither relies on the other for success and neither was conceived with the other in mind. So, what therefore was the need for the cable?
I also wondered how this fibre optic cable was going to be laid within the context of the exclusive license with GT&T. I can imagine that they would have had their concerns. Of course after the project descended quickly into the mess that it is today, I can imagine that they are just waiting to see the outcome.
There is a train of thought that it might have been more useful to begin the serious discussions with GT&T at the end of 2010 as opposed to delaying the submitted the liberalisation legislation and building our own cable. It was the absence of a proper explanation for these actions on many occasions which reinforced the belief that the future of telecommunication in Guyana was a function of vested instead of national interest. One wonders when and if liberalisation would have occurred if the fibre optic cable project was successful.
It is clear that more detailed and qualified thought needs to be applied before engaging on expensive, game-changing projects such as these. I hope that the report requested from the E-Governance project manager will be made public. This is an economic and more importantly, a taxpayer matter.

Lance Hinds is the current President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of the BrainStreet Group, an ICT consulting and information services company.