By Lance HindsI believe that with the constant pounding we get every day with news about billions needed, billions allegedly missing or misspent etc., there may be a tendency for it to become all a blur. This might therefore explain why the news over the past week regarding the demise of part of a very critical, national project passed with what I consider to be very little notice.Lance HindsI refer specifically to the estimated $7 billion e-governance project that was launched in 2011 and in particular, the Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex (DWDM) Long Haul Fibre Project connecting Guyana to Brazil.The nation has been advised that 40% of the fibre optic cable is damaged and furthermore too expensive to fix. In response to this,Wholesale Cheap Jerseys, a request was made by the Government for a comprehensive report from the E-Governance Unit on the entire project.This is a positive step in terms of clarity and transparency, since over US$5 million (G$1 billion) of our taxpayer dollars was spent on this component of the project. We certainly received enough information over the years in the local media to come to the technical conclusion that this component went up to and way beyond death’s door some time ago.The installation of a fibre optic cable over our type of hinterland terrain is a delicate, complicated matter to begin with and requires experience. Poorly laid cable, and the allegedly questionable remedial work would have adversely affected the quality of the fibre, and by extension, the level of bandwidth required. The fundamental question for me and many of my colleagues in the local technology sector is how on earth this was allowed to get to this unfortunate state of affairs in the first instance.Let us begin with the design. One would assume that the coordinators took into account the nature of the terrain from Georgetown to Brazil, and it was on that basis that the overall design, along with required technical resources and specifications, would have been established.If this was done, why would some of the selected contractors not have the necessary equipment to perform the required tasks? Would this not have been established in the tender document in the first instance? What was the quality of technical supervision performed on behalf of the client? Shouldn’t the difficulties that were encountered have been identified sooner?It is also intriguing and a bit disturbing that one of the largest communication companies in the world was also part of this implementation. Any post mortem process should state clearly the role of Huawei Technologies in the design, implementation and supervision of this project.There is also the issue of the cost. The information given us is that the cost of fixing the cable would be roughly around US$20 million. This is certainly too expensive if one takes into consideration that we were told on quite a few occasions that Government invested US$5 million.But how is this possible? A rough calculation of the cost of repairs amounts to about US$37/metre. I imagine that this pricing is based on the assumption that they would be using the undamaged portions of the cable and more than likely relaying the significant amounts of it as part of the overall remedial works.Let us now develop a scenario where the cable to Brazil was rebuilt from scratch. In view of the information provided about the repairs, we will add 20% to the cost. That makes it about US$45/metre to lay the new cable. The overall cost of laying a new cable would therefore be in the vicinity of US$25.2 million.This brings us squarely back to the Government’s US$5 million investment which works out to US$9/metre of cable.I may be a simple computer scientist and some may argue not one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, but could it be even remotely possible that an enterprise level fibre optic cable can be laid in that terrain at that price?It was quite interesting that the head of the E-Governance Unit did say in 2013 (KNews,Jerseys NFL Cheap, August 13) that the contractors underestimated the work required and actually complained about the amount that they bid. He also indicated that cost of the project would increase since it was likely that a tender would have to go international tender. Let us return,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, however, to the original question. On what basis was the US$5 million budgeted?? Also,China Jerseys Authentic, what would the contractors have based their bids on? Is there perchance, more to the mortar that just the pestle?I have never been able to wrap my head around the concept of building a cable to Brazil in the first instance. Part of this maybe is because fundamentally I do not believe that governments should be in the business of maintaining huge ICT infra