The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) Work Groups have made significant strides in their task of making the 9 900km high-performance fibre optic cable a reality, Sentech CEO Dr Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane said in a statement on Thursday.
“The meetings resulted in a draft Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) being drawn up. Three international telecommunications firms have joined
the project. The investment criteria is being defined,” said Mokone-Matabane.
John Sihra, EASSy project coordinator, said the C&MA working group came up with the first draft of the document which he said would act as the “bible” for the project.
“The Construction and Maintenance Agreement will now be revised in two more drafts which will be done electronically between the parties. We hope to have the final C&MA draft ready in March or April. The Construction and Maintenance Agreement will govern how the partners in the project interact amongst themselves, procurement, upgrades, maintenance and operations, the responsibilities of the off shore cable landing parties and so on.”
“The financial and commercial working group examined the existing funding for the project and the funding that will be needed to complete the project. The total cost of the cable system is expected to be about $200-million,” the statement said.
The financial and commercial working group meeting welcomed the inclusion of British Telecom (UK), Teleglobe (Canada) and Saudi Telecom (Saudi Arabia) as parties in the project.
“We also have interest being shown from China Telecom and Malaysia Telecom, amongst others,” Sihra stated.
“The Interim Procurement Working Group will sit in February to deliberate on the tenders which have been received for the construction of the cable project and are expected to make a decision in April/May this year by which time the final draft of the Construction and Maintenance Agreement will also be ready. Once financial agreements are signed off in June, construction can begin on the cable in July or August, with the cable project expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007.
“The cable will result in broadband access being opened up to the continent in a real way. We’re also looking at in-country, cross-border, back-haul connectivity links to give landlocked countries access to the cable as well,” concluded Sihra.
The cable, a 9 900km high-performance fibre optic cable running from
Mtunzini in South Africa to Port Sudan, will land in nine African countries along the continent’s eastern coast. Land-locked countries like Ethiopia, Botswana, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe will also be able to access the EASSy cable. – I-Net Bridge