…clarifies error made in earlier speech
MINISTER within the Ministry of Finance, Jennifer Webster, yesterday owned up to making an honest mistake when she gave the cost of a laptop in the government’s computer initiative, which would see poor families being equipped with the items as   part of the country’s push towards an IT future. However, she vehemently defended the integrity of the procurement of the laptops from the supplier, this being the subject of a report in the press yesterday.
Webster gave an official ‘Statement by Minister’ in the Parliament yesterday before the commencement of the second day of the consideration of the estimates, another in the processes towards the Parliamentary approval of the national budget. She   had made the erroneous statement on Tuesday.
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to make …a statement on the One Laptop Per Family Project in view of certain reports carried   today by some sections of the media following yesterday’s consideration of the 2011 estimates of expenditure by the Committee of Supply…” she said.
She noted that after a member of the Opposition asked about the price of the laptop, she gave an erroneous figure of $290,000 per unit. “I now wish to clarify that the budget assumes a unit cost of US$295 per laptop, and not $295,000, as   stated in error,” the Minister said.
“Indeed, it would be further recalled that I elaborated clearly in this House yesterday (Tuesday) that the budget provides a total of $1.8B for the procurement of laptops and that 27,000 laptops will be procured this year. Simple arithmetic would confirm that this implies an average cost of just over $60,000 per laptop,” she said.
However, while the Minister acknowledged that the figure she quoted was erroneous, she staunchly defended the transparency   of the project, especially in light of reports which sought to impugn the process by which the laptops will be acquired.
“Contrary to some media reports, the laptops are being procured in accordance with applicable procedures and rules,” she said.
Webster noted that the sum of $2.5B of specific financing sourced from China is meant to finance the component of the ICT project, which pertains to the construction of wireless and terrestrial networking systems from Moleson Creek to Anna Regina.
Reports in other sections of the media sought to suggest that in addition to the exorbitant sum – now corrected – that the project has a flawed procurement mechanism that was not above board.