Another team of technical people from China are doing a parallel study of their own after the government signed an e-government memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Chinese technology company, Huawei Technologies Limited.
Mulira said the government and their Chinese counterparts had come to an understanding, which should lead to the development of the infrastructure.
"Because of financial arrangements the government got a willing partner who wanted to support development in different sectors and one of the sectors was Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Because we felt it was an operation priority, we made a decision and asked China to assist," he said.
Mulira said the government wants to come up with a national ICT backbone to spur new economic activity in the country, give the population ability to communicate with the rest of the world easily and to boost trade.
He said the government realises the need for a much faster communication link because fibre optics, though expensive initially, help reduce telecommunication prices given that satellite communication, which is predominantly in use today, is expensive.
He said the government's move to engage a development partner to set up a national backbone is not meant to get a return on investment but to deliver social-economic benefits to the country. "Just like governments build roads, building of a national ICT backbone is the responsibility of government."
While mobile telephone companies MTN and uganda telecom have partnered to build a fibre-optic link from the Kenya-Uganda border at Malaba to the Uganda-Rwanda border at Katuna, the feeder links off that highway into the countryside will not be considered as economically viable by the private sector.
"That is why government has got to come in and extend this infrastructure where the private players will not reach," Mulira said.
The national backbone, Mulira said, would feed into the fibre-optic link that will be operated by MTN and uganda telecom, connecting all the districts with fast Internet connectivity.
An ICT principal communications officer, Mr Ambrose Ruyooka, said the ministry had recently constituted a technical task force to draw up technical and financial feasibility reports on the project whose cost is being finalised.
The task force, that was appointed by the ministry under the direction of President Yoweri Museveni, is composed of experts in telecoms, Information Technology (IT), regulatory affairs, macroeconomics and financial analysis.
Ruyooka was recently speaking at an I-network organised seminar. He said the backbone would provide for a unified open standard inter-governmental platform.
He said government would seek a loan for its equity contribution in the project from a yet to be disclosed Chinese financial institution after the completion of the feasibility studies that are ongoing.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Edris Kisambira & Edwin Segawa
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 02.10.2006
