Uganda's Fiber Backbone – Victim of Incompetence?

The month of August was such an interesting month for the ICT fraternity in Uganda. This is when after a long wait, many of us were hoping to start reaping from the much acclaimed high bandwidth fibre connectivity from SEACOM. Many thought that by now, we would probably be paying US$ 700 for 1MB connectivity to the ISP. Unfortunately, the wait is till on and no noticeable change in traffic speeds has occurred.

However, the Ministry of ICT took centre stage in the news when its officials went to the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology for approval of the second phase of the National Backbone Fibre Project . What evolved as a result of this interaction was so shocking and as someone who is on record for having praised the Ministry of ICT on this blog, I for once felt like retracting my words. At the root of the matter was the gross failure of the ministry to complete phase one of the fibre backbone project and have it in a fully functional state.

When the committee members toured the installation done, a lot was unearthed and it surprises me to imagine that an educated lot of people can exhibit such gross incompetence. Some of the ills that are despicable to me include;
1.Transmission rooms that had been pre-fitted with generators had been robbed of the generators (even in cases where these were at Police Stations)
2.The contractor was not effectively supervised leading to instances where cable was laid as low as 0.3m from the surface yet the recommended depth was 1m.
3.Despite the ministry getting complete documentation from the Road Agency Formation Unit about the Blackspots to be redesigned along the highway and information on road reserves, all this was ignored during installation with scenarios like the laying of the cable in the land of Uganda Investment Authority in Namanve.
4.Cables were cut as far back as 2007 and upto now had never been attended to. All along we have been fed on lies that the fibre project is in operation already.
5.The contractor got a completion certificate even when testing of the backbone was not successful otherwise how would one claim there is connectivity between Kampala and Jinja when the cable had been cut in over 5 locations?
6.The head of the project monitoring unit in the Ministry of ICT expressed a lot of ignorance about the Fibre installation when touring with the Members of Parliament. This is a very sad thing because one does not have to be a Computer expert to manage and know how such a project is progressing.

Ugandans should come out and fully support the move by the parliamentary committee on Science and Technology to halt any further work on the National Fibre Backbone until the mess in phase one has been cleared. Word going around has it that the vultures that benefited from phase one are once again putting pressure on the committee members to release the funds for phase two. Its a pity and a shame. One day, these people shall be called to account and that day is NOW.

As for the Ministry of ICT officials, can you help some of us understand what that disease is that seems to make the running of projects in Government always tainted?

Its a shame and remember, your children are seeing what you are doing. You make a choice to pass on that same incompetence to the next generation or help rectify what has been going wrong. Your choice.

Wire