The four phases involve building a 2,100 kilometre fibre optic cable network. Ultimately, the project aims to link Uganda to the submarine cable on the East African coast and provide faster and cheaper internet access. According to the line minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, yesterday’s launch was to ensure that the revenue is generated to repay the loan and to reduce costs of communication and increase efficiency within government.
The internet project and related e-Government Infrastructure is a $106m (Shs296b) project funded by a concessional loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. The loan is supposed to be paid back in 20 years.
The delays
Phase One was expected to provide connectivity to ministries and departments at a cost of $30m (Shs60b). Phase Two and Three are meant to connect all major towns, stretching about 19000 kilometres at a cost of about $61m (173b) and $15m (42b). However, to date the flat screens and video conferencing equipment are lying idle in most ministries, save for the one at ICT and foreign affairs ministries.
“Some (ministries and government offices) are using the facilities and some are not,” said the National Information Technology Authority Executive Director, Mr James Saaka. “We need a programme of re-sensitisation so that people know how to use the equipment.”
Going by Mr Saaka’s explanation, although the project was being launched, a big percentage of the intended users do not know how to use the facilities. From the time it started, the project has been rocked by counter accusations among government officials and contractors over why the project is stalling.
In a letter to the Chinese firm, Huawei Technologies, which is implementing the $106m (about sh296b) national fibre-optic project, the ICT watchdog said the work should wait until a forensic audit is conducted. “The money was borrowed six years ago but we haven’t got the best out of it, we are now doing a forensic audit to see if there was value for money during the implementation of the project,” said minister Rugunda during an address to journalists at the Media Centre last week.
Huawei Technologies is a known international performer and is said to have built over 20 National backbone networks in Africa. However, Uganda is the only country in the region that has not beaten the deadline and has launched the project midway. Issues such as the quality and capacity of the cables being laid are yet to be resolved.
A senior legislator, who prefers not to be named, on the committee on ICT, the committee that instructed the halting of Huawei activities in Uganda until a forensic audit is finalised, blames senior government officials for the mess. The MP said “ell placed government officials” asked for bribes from Huawei even before the project started and this was the beginning of all the problems.
Dr Rugunda, however, attests to this: “we have heard those allegations but we cannot make conclusions until we get the forensic audit report. It will give us all the information and whether there was value for money.”
Earlier controversy
Allegations of bribery notwithstanding, questions about the type of cable and the depth it was being laid were raised as far back as June 2009 and up to date, nothing to that extent has been clarified and unless the salient issues that have messed up the project are addressed, the remaining phases will suffer the same fate.
Reports by both the Auditor General and IGG raised a number of issues that government needed to resolve before the launch. The watchdog agencies said the selection of the contractor, Huwaei Technologies, was done without competitive bidding and no price comparisons were done to ensure value for money.
The audit found that the cost of the project was inflated. The 24 core optic cable was quoted by the contractor at $3,200 (Shs9m) per kilometre.
However, in a technology brief to the board of the National Information Technology Authority of Uganda, the price of the cable was quoted as $1,400 (Shs4m) per kilometre.
Watchdogs’ take
In addition, the AG and the IGG pointed that the 24 core cable is of lower capacity than what private companies such as MTN and the Government of Rwanda laid at a much cheaper rate. It also questioned the capacity of 24 core cables to meet the under-water bury standards.
The reports from government agencies point that there is poor supervision of the project and those major implementation guidelines were not followed. For instance, the IGG points that cables were placed too close to the road and buried less than 1.5 metres beneath the surface and also less than 15 metres from the middle of the road.
On the size and capacity of the 24 core cable, as compared to that of MTN of 48 core and Rwanda of 90 core, experts at the ministry, however, argue that once the fibre is laid, the traffic capacity can be increased by changing the devices that send the traffic.
Mr Bakku, however, later gave a go-ahead, saying, “We saw no problem with it if the damages (on the first phase) could be repaired concurrently.” The IGG argued that the government would incur more costs if it cancelled the project.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Isaac Imaka
Quelle/Source: Daily Monitor, 08.10.2011
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