The National Data Centre (NDC) that will store all public and private sector data is set for April this year according to the Minister in charge of ICT in the President’s office.

According to the Minister Ignance Gatare the centre is targeted for end of April unless if other challenges are encountered in the course.

In an exclusive interview with Gatare said that once the Data Centre is in place it will be possible to manage data base at the national level, deploy security strategy to protect the data and access to access.

"This NDC will be another milestone in ICT especially in terms of data storage,” he said.

The project is a very good achievement not only for public data storage but also private sector can lease capacity to store their data instead of investing in storage infrastructure.

National Data Centre is part of the National Information Communication Infrastructure (NICI) Plan 2005 that aims at building a robust and a modern infrastructure to accommodate a centralized system that would enhance the overall functioning of government entities and the Private Sector.

Gatare said that the key issue is to have a fully integrated national infrastructure that is serving the population but also allowing a return in terms of business.

The network includes Wireless Broadband (Wibro) and Kigali Metropolitan Network. It also includes different ICT initiatives that are being and implemented are expected to be fully efficient after laying of the national backbone.

"There is a link between the efficiency of the on going project and a fully integrated infrastructure with low access to bandwidth,” Gatare emphasised.

He mentioned that once the Centre of Excellence is completed or the business plan is fully deployed it will attract regionally in terms of skills development.

"It will be a pool to use as soon as we are producing highly skilled IT professionals you can dream of investing, attracting foreign companies and export IC services,” he said.

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