The Acting
Country Manager of the World Bank has said that lack of access to low price and
high quality telecommunications services is one of the factors that presently
limit the potential of Liberia to create jobs, expand production of goods and
services, and trade competitively with the rest of the world. Coleen Littlejohn
pointed out that poor telecommunications services in Liberia are the major
obstacle to the social and economic development of the country. The World Bank
Executive made these comments recently at the launch of the West Africa
Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (WARCIP-Liberia) Project.
The official
launch of the WARCIP-Liberia Project was held at the Golden Gate Hotel in
Paynesville, outside Monrovia.The
WARCIP-Liberia Project is as a result of a US$25.6 million loan given to the
Liberian government the World Bank
According to
Littlejohn, the lack of access to an international submarine cable, coupled
with the absence of national connectivity backbone has resulted in low
bandwidth and high price of Internet service, something which she said prevents
Liberia from benefiting from advanced Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) enabled applications.
She
indicated that the connection of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine
cable represents a unique opportunity for Liberia, which has missed out on
earlier opportunities to connect to existing global submarine fiber cable
systems.
"This
project proposes an integrated approach to improve connectivity in Liberia by
providing access to the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable and
creating an enabling environment and institutional strengthening to support for
private sector participation in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
infrastructure," she stated.
"The
Project recognizes that the creation of a competitive, enabling environment in
the sector is a prerequisite for affordable connectivity and ensuring an open
and non-discriminatory access to capacity. Results in many countries show that
this translates into improved connectivity and lower prices of communications
services" she said.
Speaking
further, she pointed out that the project will in the near future
"dramatically" bring down communication costs.
(Source: All
Africa News paper)
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