Govt set to roll out the third ICT plan

The third part of the national ICT development plan is set to be rolled out at the beginning of July this year. This was confirmed by top officials at Rwanda Development Board (RDB). “Rwanda has had two five-year plans for its ICT development and previously, focus was on policy and rollout of infrastructure, which is what we have finished. The next course of action for five years is services,”said John Gara, CEO of RDB. “In this journey, a lot is going to depend on how we encourage the private sector to come on board”. Gara added that the private sector will not only be encouraged to invest in ICT within Kigali City, but the entire country, because infrastructure was rolled out countrywide. The official says that government’s focus during this new plan would be to complement investments made within data services by various telecom operators. Data services is seen by analysts of telecoms sector, as a key enabler for fast tracking access to services across the entire economy. “We want to see more done within the data segment. We want to connect what we have done with actualising our dream of having in place a true ICT hub,” Gara said.Patrick Nyirishema , the head of ICT at RBD, revealed that over $94.5 million that has so far been invested in the ICT infrastructure nationwide in the past five years, will be moved into a new special purpose company that will champion this new move. In order to allay fears that the government is moving in to compete within the data segment of the telecoms sector, RDB says that certain principles will have to be strictly observed. The principle, the officials said, is that all regulatory issues will be respected while open access by all operators will be enforced to ensure fair play in terms of using the available infrastructure. RDB says that government is considering various models to oversee the management of the heavy investments already in place. “The aim is to promote more competition through provision of more services. Most importantly, we are serious in ensuring that if nobody is going to provide such services to all corners of this country, then the government will step in to do that, ”Gara added. Read full details of the story in the Q&A section.

National

Govt set to roll out the third ICT plan