Lack of marine fiber on the East Coast o Africa has been blamed for the high cost of communication. It costs $1,000 to store a gigabyte of data per month in Africa but only $20 in America.

As a result, the $ 280 million East African Submarine cable System (EASSy) project was identified by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as a priority project for the enhancement of ICT infrastructure in the region. The regional governments believe that a robust and reliable international telecommunication link will have significant benefits in stimulating investment, economic growth as well as providing a more reliable international communication and competitive prices for international connectivity.

The cable system will connect Mtunzini, located just north of Durban, in South Africa to Port Sudan, in Sudan a distance of 9,900 km. Other eight landing stations are planned for Maputo – Mozambique, Toliary – Madagascar, Dar-Es-Salaam – Tanzania, Zanzibar – Tanzania, Mombassa – Kenya, Mogadishu – Somalia, Djibouti and Massawa in Eritrea.

Americans have the Global Positioning System, while another similar and better example to EASSy is the European Galileo project which is a collaborative venture to provide easier communication for their nationals among the Europeans nations.

Are our governments walking the talk when it comes to this project? The initiator NEPAD clearly stated that it is a development tool to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Frustrated by the pace of negotiations; Kenya broke ranks with EASSy members and planned to link Mombasa with Djibouti. Kenya threatened to go it alone if the project is not expedited as planned. It is disturbing that although members have signed a memorandum of understanding, no state or private sector has committed money to the project. A member can thus pull out.

There have been some squabbles as a result of partners positioning themselves along self -interest lines. Our government bureaucrats tend to forget why they hold official positions in government. Ordinary citizens are being given a raw deal in development issues due to personal greed of leaders in the helm of our nations. Roads take ages to construct, because of corruption. EASSy may fall prey to these tendencies as well, as already seen in the squabbles among partners.

Differences over the mode of access and financing have been blamed for the stalling of the project, with fingers being pointed at South Africa domineering it. South Africa favors the SAT3 model which Kenya blames for not lowering communication costs. Stakeholders label the SAT3 model employed on the West Coast of Africa a flop.

NEPAD’s Infrastructure Projects Manager Brian Cheesman says that governments in Eastern and Southern Africa have expressed that they cannot allow the EASSy cable to go the same way as the SAT-3 with a club consortium structure, and that they were increasingly viewing this infrastructure as a public good. Theo Mlaki of the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology welcomes this having earlier argued that comparing the EASSy cable to SAT-3 was like “comparing yourself to a sick person”

There is need for a rethink on the EASSy business model, calling for one that allows investors to make the money back over a longer period, promoting high-capacity usage at low cost. The 20-year payback model would avoid a situation like that of the SAT-3, where capacity is severely under-utilized. It is estimated that only 5% of the potential SAT-3 capacity is currently being used. When investors were sounded out about an upgrade to the cable, more than 20% declined as they had not sold their original capacity.

An example of how EASSy could save the ordinary citizen is a recent article in the government print, The New Vision, which noted how Uganda has the second highest telephone tariff only after Turkey in the World. It is a total rift-off. MTN Uganda has just made its Million mark as far as the subscription is concerned while Safaricom in Kenya, where mobile telephony reached just the other day has about 5 million subscribers. Looking at these figures, the best business sense would postulate that, a wider subscriber base and a cheaper cost in the long run is a good deal for every one, but at this rate, there is no development progress.

It gets worse if you look at the statistics of Internet access and use by our nationals in Africa. Education and learning are increasingly being pegged to ICT, and from the above information it is clearly seen that we can’t meet the MDGs for the targeted development objectives. The demand for ICT is very critical now. More people must get access to valuable information at a cheaper cost; and this in turn should make them more self reliant in doing business, education, and production.

It is thus lamentable why our Diplomats and central governments can’t forget self interest and work as team with selfless commitment to this EASSy project. With the signing of a contract between 29 telecommunication companies in Nairobi this month, let’s hope there will be a walk of the talk on win-win basis. Let’s hope our governments will contribute equally and with speed, as per the draft protocol due to be signed on August 17 in Kigali, Rwanda.