In 2005, during an Independence Day address to the nation, then President Bharrat Jagdeo touted the modernisation of Guyana as being dependent on “the development of reliable, inexpensive telecommunication services with a sufficient band-width to allow for Information Technology related services to be developed and exported. Guyana is ideally situated for a development like this, and this government is committed to it. Competition is indispensable to this development. We intend to aggressively pursue the liberalization of this sector.”
In January 2010, GTT announced the shore-end landing in Guyana of a 1,240 km submarine fibre optic cable off the Atlantic Coast at Kingston, the Suriname-Guyana Submarine cable System (SG-SCS), which the company said would allow for more than 3,000 times the current bandwidth available in Guyana, and “upon completion will enable current services and future next-generation services at the highest industry standards and at a competitive cost.” The company boasted of putting the enormous potential of information and communications technology within the grasp of every Guyanese.
In the same year the Guyana Government launched its E-Governance fibre optic cable project which was supported by the launching in 2011 of the One Laptop per Family (OLPF) programme, all of which was supposed to realize the 2005 vision articulated by then President Jagdeo who also said “the closing of the digital divide – is very important if Guyana is to leap-frog the evolutionary path to development, and accelerate the closure of the gap between the developed and developing nations of the world.”
Since then, the E-Governance fibre optic cable installation has suffered a catastrophic failure under the truncated Ramotar presidency and the OLPF programme is in the process of being phased out by the David Granger administration with the undistributed computers under the programme being gifted to teachers – One Laptop per Teacher. According to Minister of State Joe Harmon, the OLPF project will have underperformed in its original plan to deliver 90,000 laptops by a shortfall of about 25,000.
This brings sharply into focus the issue of parliamentary oversight in the execution of important projects and bi-partisanship in their genesis. Outside of the performance of Gtt, Guyana has not progressed in the area of information and communications technology despite the billions of dollars of expenditure in an obviously poorly conceptualised and hastily implemented E-Governance programme. Simply handing out computers en masse cannot be the foundation of an effective ICT development programme.
The world has changed rapidly over the years in the area of ICT, and travellers leaving this country are soon aware of the great disparity in ICT systems between Guyana and other countries in the Caribbean, not to mention the more advanced countries like the USA, Canada and the UK. With banks in Guyana offering online banking, several procurement entrepreneurs offering online shopping, and now with the CXC directive that all School Based Assessments (SBAs) must be submitted online causing the E-Governance unit to rush to ensure high-speed internet access is accorded to the affected schools, it is clear that the government is lagging behind in its role as a facilitator for the development of a modern Guyana, with modern ICT capability.
A legitimate question that must be asked is whether the government is simply paying lip service to the ideal of fostering economic development through information and communications technology development. Do the political leaders in our country actually trust, or are they comfortable with digital systems of handling data? Do they have confidence in the persons who must inevitably be the gatekeepers of our digital data? We note that many ministers of the past and present administrations do not use government websites for their business email addresses.
Also when we look at the government agencies and ministries ICT seems to be utilised only in the most basic and simplistic manner. In Parliament, for example, there are no teleprompters being used, say, for an address by the President, even though this technology is readily available and cheap. A teleprompter was used for the first time in the Indian Parliament 6 years ago in 2010 to facilitate an address by President Barack Obama, so our politicians are not lacking in examples of how to utilise modern computer technology in performing age old practices.
Inevitably, if our country is to ever make effective use of all the available ICT advances, we have to do so at the most fundamental levels of our education system. This means that from nursery to university there must be a carefully crafted and systematically implemented bi-partisan originated ICT strategy which takes into account the current advancements in ICT and also looks at where ICT will be in 10 years’ time.
This means that all our building and construction plans must cater for next generation ICT integration and our legal, financial and commercial systems and laws must also be upgraded to be able to respond to the inevitable challenges that change and development brings. This also means that providers of ICT physical infrastructure like Gtt must deliver a more reliable service and make good on their promises to do so. The liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in Guyana has been a long time in coming, and improved service delivery is rarely achieved without effective competition.
Our new generation of leaders in all aspects of society must also be prepared for this challenging new world. Our ICT technicians must have access to the best international training available, and the laws and codes of conduct governing their trade must be responsive to the ever changing nature of the industry. The negative side and the challenges to this ICT development have been best shown in the various hackings over the years of large companies, governments and large internet service providers, but this is not a reason to remain in the digital stone age as risks occur in every area of endeavour, and risks are to be mitigated and not always avoided.
Guyana must make a firm push towards an economic growth thrust fostered by a sound ICT development strategy. Computer literacy in schools must be the result of a definitive curriculum guided approach and not the current ad hoc pattern determined by each individual’s access to a sustained source of computer knowledge as they grow, usually provided by the family.
There is no room for a laissez-faire approach to ICT development or for top down implementation. Computerized systems and computer technology must be implemented in the schools at all levels, in government buildings, in traffic control systems, in the courtrooms, in the police stations and military outposts, in 911 call centres.
In ten years’ time, current 10 year olds will be at the forefront of the change, and Guyana will hopefully be considered a modern country in all aspects of development criteria, assuming that a comprehensive growth strategy can be pursued sustainably regardless of which party wins the presidency.
It is high time that bi-partisanship, accountability and national pride takes up residence in the hallowed halls of Parliament.
