THE fibre-optic cable from Brazil, which has already passed through the border town of Lethem and is on its way to the coast, is now in limbo thanks to a budgetary allocation of a mere $1. The E-governance programme is part of government’s overall information and communications technology (ICT) thrust, designed to provide internet connectivity to indigenous communities to facilitate the hinterland aspect of the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme.
Two projects were embarked upon in two phases. The first is the Lethem-to-Georgetown project, which will connect to Brazil and provide internet access for e-government purposes.
This project is about 85% complete, with all the fibre-optic cables in the country; however, there is still need to install internal equipment and connect the cables.
The other project, which is much bigger, is to run a fibre-optic cable from Moleson Creek to Parika, then do a crossing for access to the Essequibo Coast.
This project also has with it a wireless component for access to the network, which will be through the long-term revolutionary 4G cellular technology, as well as through an e-government data centre which will be built and established in Providence.
The main focus of the programme is to create infrastructure in Guyana especially for government purposes, introduce new government services, and give whatever services already exist better access to  citizens who use government services, and to speed up the process.
However, with the budget cut instituted by the parliamentary opposition parties, works to ensure completion of this programme are likely to be stymied.