Guyana was not ready then, but we certainly are now!

Mar 05, 2017 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

Early last week the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph company (GTT) fulfilled a promise to Essequibians to bring them faster, easily accessible internet by June 2017. The company was able to complete installation of the necessary facilities

Minister of Public Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes

four months ahead of their own schedule and they began selling the service to Essequibians in February. It was launched on Monday 27 February at Anna Regina, and Minister of Public Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes, took that opportunity to layout some of her Ministry’s plans for the region within the context of creating a technologically savvy Guyana. Below are excerpts from her address.
The Ministry of Public Telecommunications couldn’t be happier that GTT has acted on its promise to provide faster internet connectivity to the people of Essequibo. This is long overdue and now you can look forward to new possibilities.
Even before we assumed office in 2015, this government was very aware that Guyana was lagging far behind our Caribbean neighbours, and much farther behind the developed countries like the USA and China, in terms of our inability to provide better internet connectivity across Guyana.
This situation has limited our progress and prevented our citizens from getting involved in and benefitting from all that this technology-driven world has to offer. Before 2015, Guyana was nowhere close to being able to inspire our people to innovate; to create money-making businesses out of the produce that grow right in their environments. Our students, for example, had little access to the essays and theses written by world class researchers, and we were not ready when CXC announced in 2015 that ALL candidates must submit their SBA’s online. Guyana was not ready then, but we certainly are now!
Our mission is to see to it that every single student anywhere in Guyana all have access to the same information at the same time. They could only do this when we equip Guyana with universal LTE and fibre optic networks.
That is one reason why we are happy that GTT has activated this 4G LTE service. It is going to improve your lives and livelihoods, and it adds a fillip to our own efforts to digitize this nation.
As soon as we came to government we began to devise a plan to provide an “enabling environment” for citizens to put their imaginations to work and earn export dollars for their products. This plan, from an ICT perspective, has many parts – some low-hanging fruits and many long term objectives. Most of these objectives are already in progress:-

v Installing a modern LTE and fibre optic network along the coastlands, in the hinterland and inland regions
v Providing computers and equipment to community centres, especially in poor and remote communities
v Training community leaders to use the computers and in turn they would support and teach residents … remember, the goal is a technologically savvy population
v In the last quarter of 2016 we conducted a Needs Assessment in several Poor, Remote and Hinterland communities across Guyana. That report was submitted at the end of the year and now we are close to finalizing plans for a massive spin-off project taking internet and other digital services to these rural communities. This project will begin by October 2017.
v At midyear last year we began installing internet-ready equipment in secondary schools. To date there are over 101 schools, technical institutes, Regional Education Offices, the university campuses in Georgetown and Berbice, and the teachers’ training college, equipped with free access to the internet. Of course, this comes with software to restrict the students’ access to unhealthy websites containing pornography, terrorism-related material, and such.

One very key item on our agenda is placing public services within easy reach of every citizen through the internet. We are still refining the process, and very soon you will not have to travel to Georgetown to join long lines just to submit your application for a passport. And this is just the beginning. The objective is to place every single public service online, including applications for birth and death certificates; drivers’ licences; business compliance certificates; land, housing, mining and forestry permits – every public service, and in time we will use technology to pay our pensioners.
This is a good time to tell you that very shortly we will activate a plan to rehabilitate strategically placed post offices (most were allowed to deteriorate for decades into deplorable conditions). We will add internet-related services and convert some into ICT hubs. They will also offer a new service that was introduced recently – Swift Shipping for online shoppers and business owners.
So with vastly improved internet capacity and speed, rice farmers in this region can now search online for spare parts for your combines and tractors; beauticians can source your hair and nail supplies and have it shipped to Guyana by Swift Shipping. Supermarket owners will enjoy being able to buy new products online and have them on their shelves in no time.
And most importantly, our entrepreneurs will have a ready-made export shipping route for our indigenous products, e.g. hammocks, high quality coconut water, coconut oil and other coconut-based cosmetics and foods, tamarind balls, guava cheese, etc. to the ready-made diaspora market.
Allow me to offer a word of encouragement to the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company. This nation will only move forward if the private sector continues to invest in our economy. We do appreciate your expansion into the Essequibo and we look forward to seeing the rest of it. We hope that your company will continue to fulfill the promises you’ve made to expand and strengthen the range of telephone and digital services. We see your participation as vital to the transformation of our nation.
I ask you, the good people of Essequibo, to look for the opportunities to be successful entrepreneurs, put your skills to work and earn. There are many of you who are building great software applications, preserving and processing fruits and vegetables, and doing other innovative things. Just keep thinking outside the box and venture into new areas. With all that lies before us, e.g. a hydrocarbon industry and possibilities for developing numerous downstream industries, we have to believe that we can do it!