Statement
by
The Hon. Edward Singhatey
Secretary of State for Works Communications and Information
Republic of the Gambia

Wednesday,20 March 2002

Mr. Chairman
Secretary General of the ITU
Director of the BDT
Fellow Ministers
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government and people of Turkey for the warm welcome and kind hospitality accorded to all of us since our arrival in this beautiful city of Istanbul.

In the Gambia, telecommunications development has come a long way. Up to 1987, the network was predominantly analogue with a subscriber base of less than 2000 main lines. However, within the past 15 years, we have succeeded in building a sound financial base and a solid technological foundation. There are now more than 40,000 customers with a penetration of 3 lines per 100 inhabitants and the country can boast of a 100% digital network, two GSM mobile operators (with a total connection of 53,000 lines after only 8 months of operation), two prepaid platforms for accessing the fixed network and an Internet backbone and gateway with points of presence in all major towns.

In the area of network development, the company has completely replaced all the analogue exchanges with digital switches, overhauled the dilapidated local access network, laid over 400 km of fibre optic cable to serve as the national backbone, and introduced both PDH and SDH technologies in the transport network. The Earth Station has also been completely digitalised.

Currently, the government, in order to promote the use of ICT in education, is in the process of providing computers and connecting all the secondary and primary schools to the Internet. This, we believe, will go a long way in making the benefits of ICT accessible to a good number of our youths and young people and will also encourage Gamtel (the national operator) to extend its fixed network to all villages with schools.

Also, in an effort to achieve Universal Access, the Government has facilitated the setting up of over 500 telecentres countrywide. This initiative has led to the proliferation of telecentres in almost all the key villages in the country. Telecentres have proven to be both effective in terms of their income generating capacity and the employment opportunities they have create.

Telemedicine is another area the Government has been keenly interested in and funds have already been allocated for linking the provincial hospitals and health centres to the main referral hospital in the capital. Work has already begun towards the achievement of this objective.

Mr Chairman,

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) initiative recognises the fact that rapid advances in technology and the diminishing cost of acquiring the new ICT tools have opened new windows of opportunity for African countries to accelerate economic growth and development. It therefore has as its objectives the following (and I quote):

1. To double teledensity to two lines per 100 people by 2005

2. To lower the cost and improve reliability of service

3. To achieve e-readiness for all countries in Africa

4. To develop and produce a pool of ICT-proficient youth and students from which Africa can draw trainee ICT engineers, programmers and software developers

5. To develop local content software, based especially on Africa’s cultural legacy.

To my mind, these are very laudable and achievable objectives and I appeal to everyone not to spare any effort in order to make them a reality.

With regards to RASCOM, the Gambia is calling upon all stakeholders to fully support this regional satellite project, as we believe that once realised, it will go a long way in solving the interconnectivity problems that currently exist between African states.

Mr. Chairman,

In conclusion, although a lot of investment has gone into developing the telecommunications network in The Gambia, much remains to be done to satisfy the increasing demand for service, especially in the rural areas where the majority of the population lives. We therefore call upon all partners in development to come up with innovative project financing packages which would make the task of getting telephone services to the deprived rural folk a little bit easier.

I thank you very much for your attention.