— Min. Hughes says he is out of touch with development in Guyana

PUBLIC Telecommunications Minister Catherine Hughes has dismissed claims from Opposition Member of Parliament Juan Edghill that “Ministries [are] wallowing in massive underperformance” contending that Edghill is out of touch with development in Guyana.

“It is very easy to throw around unfounded remarks,” she said, adding that the “learned gentleman” and his cohorts have been busy spreading misinformation while her ministry has been busy putting Guyana firmly on the path to Information Communication Technology (ICT) relevance in the world.

The minister said in 2015 when the coalition government assumed power, President Granger had said, as he has reiterated time and again, that the strongest emphasis must be placed on modernised education.

The first-ever Ministry of Public Telecommunications was then established and gazetted in January 2016.

It was given the mandate to digitise Guyana’s schools and ensure that students have access to the worldwide web and the global library of information.

By the end of September 2016, over 120 secondary schools, technical/vocational institutes and other educational institutions, including the David Rose School for the Blind and the Carnegie School of Home Economics, were connected to the national Information Technology (IT) network.

This was followed in October by countrywide distribution of 8,600 laptop computers to train and in-training teachers, computers fully loaded with lesson and marking templates and research tools. Since then, laptop computers were presented to outstanding students and citizens and non-governmental organisations (NGO).

Prior to all this, Minister Hughes pointed out, in early 2016 the physical LTE and fibre-optic networks spanning Guyana’s coastland were activated after sitting dormant for two years.

This activation was the precursor to the nationwide Community ICT hub project designed to provide free wifi connections to all citizens at community centres.

“During this same week [in September], three more ICT hubs are being commissioned at Agricola and Grove, East Bank Demerara (EBD), and at Better Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD) bringing the current number of functioning hubs to 37.”

The hub programme is intensifying as the ministry’s relations with the Georgetown and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils, urban and rural citizens, are strengthened.

MOVE TO LIBERALISATION

Minister Hughes said within eight months of its formation, the Ministry of Public Telecommunications had succeeded in passing the Telecommunications Act into law, which is intended to liberalise the IT sector.

The PPP, she said, had sat on these pieces of legislation for 14 years doing nothing to, or with it. The July 2016 passage of the bill was the culmination of many years of lobbying by both APNU and the AFC while in Opposition for advanced telecommunications services to be made available to citizens.

“It is to our credit that we have come this far in less than two years,” Minister Hughes stated.
In a previous interview, she had stated that Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge, had led the opening of serious discussions with GTT and its parent company, ATNI, in December 2016 to end that company’s claimed exclusivity to international communications and landline services.
It has to be noted that when the original agreement was about to expire in 2010, the telephone company did notify the then government of its intention to exercise their contractual right to renew for a further 20 years.
The PPP’s response was to sell the people of Guyana’s 20 per cent share in GT&T for US$30M.
The buyer was Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group based in Hong Kong. This Government is still utilising available options to have Datang pay up the US$5M balance from the 2012 sale.
Both the GoG and ATNI anticipate that the discussions would come to an amicable conclusion before this year’s end.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Public Telecommunications has been conducting numerous and simultaneous events while participating in others, which were organised by the rejuvenated IT private sector.

Minister Hughes made specific reference to the just-concluded CodeSprint2017 that saw a previously unknown incorporated group, Innovation Systems, winning the first prize for the design of an Agricultural Commodities Trading Exchange.

With some refinement in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Telecommunications, this new agricultural products online market app will be handed over to the Agriculture Ministry for implementation.

It is expected to solve the farm-to-market problems that local farmers have been grappling with for decades.

At the same time, IT Engineers and teams of technicians are now mobilising for the countrywide POOR, REMOTE and HINTERLAND Communities connectivity programme which is being funded through the GRIF fund.

EXPANSION

The LTE network is being expanded to reach Bartica, Kwakwani, Mabaruma, Mahdia, Lethem, Annai and other towns and communities in the Rupununi, Berbice, and other interior regions.

And earlier in the year, the ministry and UG began a useful collaboration to mainly expand the Campus Area Network (CAN) of the university. This project includes a new fibre-optic network to convert the entire campus and its Residential Hall at Plaisance into Wifi hot spots. The Cyril Potter College that lies contiguous to the university is also benefiting from this initiative.

In addition, a new Teleconferencing Platform was commissioned last June in UG’s Computer Science Department to connect classrooms at Tain in Berbice with the Turkeyen campus. This teleconferencing suite was a gift from Huawei Technologies.

The agreement for technical co-operation with UG also involves knowledge sharing. In Q1 2018 the Ministry’s Centre of Excellence in Information Technology (CEIT) located on the Turkeyen campus will be commissioned and classes will be conducted initially by highly accomplished professors from India.

UG will share educational resources with the CEIT, especially in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Those resources include research; new ideas to keep the ICT Legal and Regulatory Framework up to date; ICT Project Management; and communication networks and enterprise solutions to support courses in the university’s curricula.

A slew of developmental activities and events are scheduled for this last quarter of 2017, including the second Ministry of Public Telecommunications Hackathon in November.

The first Hackathon in 2016 has achieved its main purposes which were to encourage young people with ICT skills to set up new businesses and create new apps that will resolve social and economic issues in every sector of the economy, even government services and investment potential.

MP Edghill had asked, “What has been done to improve telecommunications and related services in Guyana in the past two years?” Then he challenged Minister Hughes to “state publicly one thing she has done in terms of improving this.”

Minister Cathy Hughes has expressed confidence that her ministry continues to meet its mandates and benchmarks which are mainly to empower citizens to improve their livelihoods through easy access to the Internet, and to develop the mechanisms to provide and maintain a cyber-safe and cyber-secure environment for citizens and their businesses.