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Guyana gearing for the information age

Wednesday, February 4, 2004

GEORGETOWN, Guyana: The Guyanese Government has been and will continue to work at closing the digital divide and liberalizing telecommunication in Guyana. This is the commitment given by President Bharrat Jagdeo at the commissioning of the University of Guyana's Information Technology Centre at the Turkeyen Campus.

Government has repeatedly spoken about the need to have solid telecommunication locally, the President said, adding that it is the "platform on which everything is built." He noted that such a development has taken place around the world, especially in the United States of America, and is part of the declaration of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas.

"That is closing the digital divide and liberalizing telecommunication and my Government is committed to liberalizing the telecommunication sector in Guyana," the President reaffirmed.

According to Jagdeo, the telecommunication sector in Guyana has made some progress but there still remains a tremendous gap when Guyana is compared to other developed countries.

"We feel that a liberalized telecommunication sector is key to achieving universal connectivity and that is what we need today. And in spite of all the progress we have made so far, if you examine connectivity that is lines per thousand persons in this hemisphere, you would see the gap between the developed countries of our hemisphere and Guyana. We have not, and we need to, close that gap. We can't take three years to close the gap. We can't take five years to close the gap. We have to close the gap now and I feel that one of the ways of doing that is through a liberalized telecommunication sector," he said.

However, Jagdeo pointed out that in the haste to liberalize this prized service-telecommunication, the basic principles of fair competition, universal access, transparency, equity and the creation of appropriate legal and regulatory framework needs to be embraced.

Acknowledging the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company's (GT&T) contribution to development in the sector, President Jagdeo said, "it is not about just expanding over the past years, for which GT&T have been handsomely rewarded…the cost of access and bandwidth today is important. I agree that countries could be left behind. They could be condemned to be poor forever and ever, but it is not just connecting people up; it is costly because in today's world everything revolves around cost and reliability," he asserted.

Commenting on the provision of cellular service locally, the Head of State noted that although there are more than 100,000 subscribers "we still do have many blind spots and dropping of calls and that needs to be corrected and I am very pleased that we are moving away from old technology but that should have taken place a long time ago."

The President noted that his is constructive criticism and is done "so that my people here in this country could get reliable service at the lowest possible cost. That is our sole objective. We do not have any hidden agenda and of course people must be remunerated for their investments."

Outlining his Administration's plans for information technology in Guyana, President Jagdeo said Guyana is hoping to secure a loan before the end of this year, which is currently being negotiated with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). This will be used to provide $600M to use for further development of information technology and the sciences at the University of Guyana.

He also noted that Government is drafting an ICT policy aimed at fostering a competitive sector, but aspects of it are already being implemented.

"We have draft legislation for e-comers. The Government has given grant funding for training for some/several companies (Decipher for medical transcription students). We have another initiative where the Government is spending about $60M refurbishing the building to get a call centre out of Barbados established in Linden. We have seen some call centres in operation. We have established a fiscal incentive regime to stimulate investments in that sector. We have now seen with the application of IT that we have a human resources personnel management integrated with the Government payroll system, which helps us tremendously, as we have linked the accounting systems of all Government agencies with the Ministry of Finance. Under the BEAMS project hey are enhancing the delivery of primary education through the use of technology. All of these things are part of our Government's programme to develop information technology and they are all driven by a framework," President Jagdeo said.

The President said Government is negotiating with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which was held up largely because of differences in opinion between GT&T and the Government of Guyana. When resolved, this will provide for the expansion of about 20 large telecentres across the country and more than 100 Internet cafes in unserved areas. According to President Jagdeo these would be built by the Government and then "privatised to young people so that they can start running this as a business. It helps also to incubate entrepreneurship. We hope to create that network that would take Government and the Government information right across the country and also give our people in the south of Georgetown where they have limited facilities in some of the municipalities and many of the rural and remote parts of this country."

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