Geneva — The Kenyan government has not pulled out of the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSY) project after all, writes Rose Zioka.

The Government of Kenya has dismissed media reports that it has pulled out of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) project. In an exclusive interview with HANA in Nairobi, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication, Dr. Bitange Ndemo told HANA that Kenya is the chair of the operators in EASSy and therefore cannot pull out. He said, "Kenya has not pulled out of EASSy. In fact Kenya is the chair of the EASSy operators and is determined to find a resolution and consensus to the obstacles facing the project."

Dr. Ndemo said Kenya however snubbed a meeting called by South Africa on October 16 for Ministers responsible for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) from Eastern and Southern African countries in Cape Town to sign an agreement on the EASSy project because South Africa is pushing for countries to approve an "undemocratic process".

In May this year Kenya threatened to establish its own parallel fiber optic project because EASSy was behind schedule by one year. The government said it preferred multiple fibre optic cables to link Kenya to the rest of the world saying that many cables would spur competition and offer reliable and affordable communication. EASSy is an initiative to connect countries of eastern and southern Africa via a high bandwidth fibre optic cable system to the rest of the world. It is considered a milestone in the development of information infrastructure in the region and is expected to cost US$240million. The project is expected to improve telephony and internet connectivity and consequently enable Africa to participate actively in the global economy. EASSy is planned to run from Mtunzini in South Africa to Port Sudan in the Sudan, with landing points in six countries, and connected to at least five landlocked countries, who will no longer have to rely on expensive satellite systems to carry voice and data services.

Dr. Ndemo said the fibre optic cable model that South Africa is propagating is expensive and has failed in West Africa. He said historically it had been proven that Government investments in parastatals and other businesses do not work and therefore such investments should be left to the private investor.

Dr. Ndemo said South Africa is "arrogant" and had reneged on the original protocol. He said that instead of seeking consensus between policy makers and operators, South Africa went ahead and called for two signing ceremonies on the EASSy project. "Yet despite hosting two signing ceremonies for the EASSy project, South Africa has only managed to marshal nine out of twenty-four countries. The majority of the countries want to see a transparent, democratic and inclusive process which includes policy makers and operators not just governments," said Dr. Ndemo. Dr. Ndemo outlined the main problems as follows: South Africa's refusal to honour the Nairobi protocol and her insistence on governments to have veto powers over the EASSy project; South Africa's proposal for a common regulatory body despite the big differences among countries in levels of liberalization of their telecommunication systems; South Africa's proposal that Nepad e-Africa Commission be endorsed as the EASSy secretariat despite the fact that there is no transparency in the appointment of the Commission's officers.

Nepad e-Africa Commission is a body mandated with the development of a continental ICT industry. He said there is a perception that South Africa has been pushing for the domination of the EASSy project through Nepad. However, South Africa has severally denied this accusation. This is not the first time that Kenya has refused to sign up to a South Africa-convened EASSy meeting having done so before due to disagreements with South Africa about the financing and management of the project. In Kigali, out of the 23 countries involved in the project, only seven - Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania - signed the protocol at the August 29 ceremony in Kigali, and 2 more added their signatures on the 16th of October 2006 in Cape Town increasing the tally to 9 countries. The establishment of EASSy is of utmost importance as it will complete the optic fibre ring around the African continent. The cable's system length is estimated at 9,900 km at a cost of US$240million and a lifespan of 25 years.