Minister of State within the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon yesterday met with Project Manager of the controversial E-Governance Project Alexei Ramotar.
In a statement, the Ministry of the Presidency said the meeting took place at the project’s Barrack and Duke Street Kingston operations.
According to the statement, the Minister was given a tour of the office, and was updated on projects and operations. “He asked about the Fibre Optic Cable Project. Ramotar emphasised that about 40% of the cable has been damaged and it is now too expensive to fix,” it noted.
Ramotar, the son of former president Donald Ramotar, has been blamed for bungling the cable project under his father’s administration. In March, the then government revealed that an agreement had been reached with Dax Engineering amid deep concerns over the flawed cable, on which it had already expended over $1B. Then Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon had said that under the agreement for the repairs, the contractor, Dax Engineering, would be given a number of pairs of fibres in the cable for its own use
Meanwhile, the Ministry statement said that also present at the meeting yesterday were Project Control Manager Rosco Greene and government’s adviser on E-Governance Floyd Levi, who will be working closely with Ramotar and the E-Governance project.
During the brief meeting, Minister Harmon urged Ramotar and his staff to continue to work hard, and Ramotar expressed satisfaction in what he heard from the minister on the way forward, the statement added.
