ICT to be major driver of economic growth
THE Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector is poised to be a major driver of growth in the future and, as such, Government will continue to aggressively promote investment in it. This was stated by Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, when he unveiled the record $192.8 billion National Budget in the National Assembly last Friday.
Touching on new and emerging sectors, during his speech, he pointed out that ICT has emerged, globally, as one of the most influential drivers of innovation and transformation in the current generation.
“The emergence of ICT has spawned limitless opportunities for people in countries such as ours and our Government is firmly committed to ensuring that the Guyanese people are fully equipped to take advantage of these opportunities,” he said.
“Our vision is to ensure that every single Guyanese person, irrespective of where they live or how old they are, have access to the advantages brought by ICT,” Singh assured.
He said:”Government’s ICT strategy will facilitate dramatic increases in social and economic welfare at all levels; catalyse major transformative change in the way in which we educate our people, in the manner in which business is conducted and Government services are delivered and in the types of jobs created.”
To this end, Singh said the approach prioritises legislative change to promote a competitive and efficient environment, investment in infrastructure to increase connectivity and reduce cost, promote ICT education in schools, and improve access to ICT for all people.
He said the Government has already, successfully, facilitated the emergence of an ICT sector, within which over 3,000 persons are employed in business process outsourcing, with ten call centres currently in operation doing business in telemarketing, inbound customer support, voice transcription, medical records transcription and data warehousing.

Potential
“This sector is poised to be a major driver of growth in the future, with the potential to create an additional 6,000 jobs in the near term and a further 15,000 jobs in the medium term,” the Finance Minister predicted.
“We will continue to promote investment in the sector aggressively in order to ensure that as many high quality jobs are created in the shortest possible time,” he told the House.
A critical element of ensuring competitiveness and expansion in this sector would be the achievement of telecommunications liberalisation, Singh said, recalling that efforts were made during the last Parliament to introduce a legislative framework to govern the sector in an era of competition, with a new Telecommunications Bill, amendments to the Public Utilities Act, and Telecommunications Regulations drafted.
“Regrettably, the legislative process could not have been completed on time before the dissolution of the Ninth Parliament. It is our intention to return to this Honourable House early in the current Parliament, to have this new legislative framework put in place in order to facilitate the transition to full competition,” Singh said.
He added that, in pursuit of the objectives of universal access, Government has been following the twin tracks of installing infrastructure that will see high speed delivery of e-government content along with ensuring that no household will be left without access to that content.
To these ends, he disclosed that amounts totalling $2.6 billion were allocated to install some 580 kilometres of high speed fibre optic network spanning from Lethem to Providence with drop-off sites at Annai, Kurupukari, Mabura and Linden and commencing a fibre optic backhaul network connecting Moleson Creek to Anna Regina, with a data centre at Providence for the development of e-government with high speed wireless access using a 4G network.
“A total of $3.1 billion is budgeted to be spent in 2012 for the continuation of these networks,” the Finance Minister said.
He reminded that, also in 2011, Government launched the flagship One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme and an amount of $1.6 billion was spent to procure 27,000 laptops, of which 10,850 were distributed in Regions 2 (Pomeroon/Supenaam), 3 (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), 4 (Demerara/Mahaica), 5 (Mahaica/Berbice), 6 (East Berbice/Corentyne), 7 (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) and 10 (Upper Demerara/ Upper Berbice).
Singh said that, to facilitate the effective use and operation of those laptops, Government utilised 99 private sector hubs to provide training and internet access to the recipients and, in this regard, 3,569 recipients completed the mandatory ten hours training programme.
He said this year will see the continuation of the OLPF programme, for which an amount of $3.7 billion is allocated.
Over the next year, a total of 63,000 laptops will be acquired for distribution to families and communities countrywide, bringing the total number of laptops distributed to 90,000.
“This programme will make a dramatic difference in ensuring that our most vulnerable have equal access to ICT and will vastly increase the pool of IT literate persons in our country,” Minister Singh declared.
“Taken together, these developments will place Guyana in a position to be much more competitive as a destination for ICT investment and will enable the sector to play its expected transformative role, including as a direct driver of economic diversification and growth,” he stated.