PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo announced, last week Tuesday, that the procurement for the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) project is expected to start soon.
Speaking to sugar workers at Diamond, East Bank Demnera, he disclosed that bids put forward are being looked at and, in another two or three months, the computers should be procured. The Head of State emphasised the benefits of becoming computer literate and encouraged his audience to recognise this and be trained.
“In five years, we hope that every Guyanese is computer literate,” he said.   
Through the OLPF, it is intended to distribute 90,000 computers to families across the length and breadth of Guyana over the next two years (2011-2012) and the 2011 National Budget provides $1.8 billion for the disbursement.
Hundreds were in Diamond Secondary School when President Jagdeo explained that, little by little, Guyana has made a comeback, from the dire economic position that was the country’s reality, to a booming economy that has withstood the impacts of the recession from which the rest of the world is reeling.
He said the OLPF project will close the vast digital divide between developed and developing countries and he said, once the computers are procured, a means test would be applied to determine qualification for access to them.
A special project management office, under the Office of the President, is responsible for managing the implementation of the project and beneficiaries would be required to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that stipulates the terms and conditions of the use of the computers.
However, Mr. Jagdeo said a verification process is necessary to ensure fair and equitable distribution.
According to him, the aim is to prevent a repeat of what happened during the 2005 floods, when aid was disbursed and several persons from the same household derived benefit, instead of one recipient per home to ensure that more people benefited.
He maintained that each Guyanese should be the beneficiary of information technology and each child, regardless of the financial status of their family, deserves to benefit, particularly from the educational possibilities that access to technology provides.
President Jagdeo reiterated that the new fibre optic cable, in which the government has invested, will not only transform the nation but broaden the scope of opportunities available to all Guyanese.