CLARIFICATION: Isles e-governance optic fibre laying met international standards

BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

Officials and technicians from ZTE Corporation of China inspect the trench being dug before laying the optic fiber backbone network in Zanzibar.

The government of Zanzibar has strongly refuted reports published by this newspaper about three weeks ago; stating that the Chinese constructor -ZTE -awarded the tender to lay the e-governance fiber optic backbone in Zanzibar did not implement the project according to international standards.

Titled” Zanzibar‘s fibre backbone network at risk’ the story at some point quoted Former Chairman of  Technical Committee of Zanzibar e-Government Department Mohammed Juma Ame as its actual source of that information.

Following thorough follow-up, compounded by a confirmation from Ame himself it was leant that the former chairman of the technical committee did not speak to this newspaper. 
This newspaper, therefore, seeks to correct that impression and we commit ourselves to observing professionalism as we have always being doing.

The story published had no evil intention on any stakeholder involved in the story.

In his notes availed to this newspaper, Ame said ZTE implemented the project strictly based on the related international standard.

He said in normal soil the depth of the trench was 120cm, while for hard soil the digging depth of the trench was 100cm.The digging standard for rocky areas was 60cm under the ground, he said.

He added that the contractor respected the criteria of digging deep enough but for some rocky areas where it was impossible to go to the depth of 60cm, a trench of 40cm depth was dug and then covered by concrete on the top to seal it.

But, a section of the report availed to the reporter about three weeks ago claimed that the efficacy of the fibre optic backbone was in jeopardy following a sub-standard work by the contractor.

The report stated further that costly repairs had been undertaken by last ‘mile’ contractors to rescue the network after it suffered multiple cuts by water companies and other utilities as they undertook maintenance work in Zanzibar.

The report provided further that in some areas the cable was buried 30 cm below the surface, significantly less than the recognised international standards of between 1 and 1.2 metres for normal soil and 60cm for rocky soil.

Information provided by Ame stated that the implementation of first phase of the E-government optical Transmission network project was launched in November 2011 and commissioned in November 2012.

The project was formally inaugurated by Zanzibar President Dr Ali Mohammed Shein on January5th, 2013 last year.

 “This project was funded by concessionary loan provided by the Government of People’s Republic of China through Exim Bank of China of approximately $ 20m.

The project was constructed by ZTE Corporation of China under the supervision of Securitree International Consulting Company from Israel,”Ame stated in his notes.

The Government set up two committees to oversee all project activities, Steering committee which comprised of seven Principal Secretaries and Technical Committee formed by nine senior government technicians.

 The  project was inspected by two recognised international bodies accredited by the  the International Standard Organizations (ISO), namely  IQnet and The Standard Institute of Israel  which both   certified and awarded the project with SI ISO 27001: 2005 and ISO 9001: 2008 Certificates.

This clarification was published in The Guardian Newspaper on November 15, 2014 but due to reasons that were out of control we could not upload it to our website.   -Editor   

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN