Gov’t team heads to China for talks with Huawei

Aug 27, 2016 News

Public Telecommunications Minister Cathy Hughes

– wants help on e-Governance expansion

A team led by Public Telecommunications Minister, Cathy Hughes, is on the way to China for talks with the principals of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., for the expansion of the country’s E-governance programme to the hinterland.
Huawei is the company that constructed the US$32M e-Government network in coastal Guyana, the ministry explained yesterday. The network consists of a fibre optic system in Georgetown, and a 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network that extends from Skeldon, Berbice to Charity, Essequibo Coast.
This is the ambitious system that the Government of Guyana is currently utilizing to provide internet access to schools and governmental agencies along the coastal plain.
“The inter-connectivity programme is progressing well and the ultimate objective is to have every single public entity connected to the national network,” the ministry said.
Huawei is a Chinese multi-national networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.
It is reputed to be the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, having overtaken Ericsson in 2012, and it was this company that constructed the national ICT networks in Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Panama.

Head of the E-Government Unit, Floyd Levi

According to Minister Hughes, the telecommunications team will meet with Huawei’s principals at their Shenzhen headquarters, and visit their factories and installations in Beijing and Shanghai.
“The main objectives are to secure the long term viability of Guyana’s telecommunication networks, and to acquire technical assistance and training capacity. The latter is to push forward the Government’s plan to expand the ICT networks into all un-served areas including Bartica, Linden, Kwakwani, Port Kaituma, Mabaruma, Annai and Lethem.”
Head of the E-Government Unit, Floyd Levi, disclose that the unavailability of the severely damaged fibre optic cable is the reason for the expansion initiative. This cable was supposed to have been laid subterraneously along the Linden to Lethem corridor, and it should have had the capacity to provide internet services to all hinterland communities in most administrative regions.
“In the meantime, with the creation of competent technical skills being so integral to the entire national programme, Huawei will be asked to facilitate in-country training of no less than fifty (50) ICT engineers in the immediate term. Only four (4) ICT engineers had received adequate training under the previous administration.”
The e-Governance project was launched by People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) while that party was in office. However, the initiative was marred by the fact that a sister programme, the running of a separate fibre optic cable from Lethem, along the trail through Linden and onto the city, faced tremendous technical issues.
The David Granger-led administration, on entering office last year, immediately suspended the Lethem cable works, saying that an assessment is needed.
One of the other projects that had been done to bolster the e-Governance initiative was the One Laptop Per Family project. This project for 90,000 laptops was for poor families but after a few years, just about half of the instruments were distributed.
Many families were without internet, with complaints of faulty laptops and even mismanagement at the OLPF secretariat.