Significant progress made in ICT services for hinterland communities -PM says
Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips (Delano Williams photos)
Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips (Delano Williams photos)

PRIME Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips, said, on Friday, that significant progress has been made in ICT access and E-Services for hinterland and remote communities over the last three years, with over 100 hubs already established and running.

The Prime Minister made these remarks during a meeting with the ICT project board, which falls under the purview of the Office of the Prime Minister.

Some of the members of the ICT Board during the meeting on Friday

According to Phillips, from 2020 to now, the project has moved from no hubs being completed before that time to some 120 hubs being completed and connected across various villages.
He said, “We have progressed tremendously over the last three years; there’s a reason why I mentioned this because, on the other side, we have elements from the opposition who are using this project to play politics.”

The Prime Minister indicated that the government has worked through significant challenges faced in these remote areas to ensure that connectivity is brought to those communities.
Some of those challenges, he noted, include transporting the equipment into the community as access to some are limited and this raises concerns about possibly damaging the equipment before it arrives in the designated communities.
“But we have to and we are doing it… work is being done every day and we are getting closer to achieving the 200 communities connected to the internet that we set out to do with this project,” the Prime Minister expressed.

While he noted that prior years were lost under the previous administration with nothing being done on the project, the Prime Minister reiterated that, in almost four years, tremendous progress has been made in the sense that the project is more than 50 per cent complete.
Additionally, Phillips told the board that this year the government had allocated $60 million for the maintenance of those ICT hubs that are already up and running for quite some time.
As such, he said that the office has completed its budgetary submissions for 2025 and has requested almost double that amount for the operational side of those projects as more are expected to come on stream.

While the project has an estimated end date of January 31, 2026, the Prime Minister indicated to the team that he would like to see all 200 hubs completed by December 2025.

Meanwhile, United Nations Development Programme resident representative to Guyana, Gerardo Noto, praised the project and indicated that the government has shown multiple times a high level of commitment to move forward with ICT access to all Indigenous villages around the country and facilitate inclusion while bridging the digital divide.

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