The Policy and Regulatory Adviser of Nepad e-Africa Commission, Dr Edmund Katiti said that the South African government and Nepad's ICT experts had persuaded the countries that were objecting to the change in the project to realise the limitations of the consortium model which they had preferred.

The EASSy project involves laying of a fibre optic cable from Mtunzini north of Durban, through landing stations along East Africa to Port Sudan. The cable will link with the countries' national networks at the landing stations. Others would subsequently be interconnected through the networks of landlocked countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and D.R Congo.

When the project was first conceived, it was to be primarily a private sector project. The core investors in the cable infrastructure would determine the retail prices of bandwidth. The project was to be owned and operated by a group of companies that would generate financing; an arrangement known as the consortium model. The South African government and Nepad have recently argued that the consortium model would not achieve the objective of the project – bringing down the costs of communication in the region. They suggested that the model be altered to "open access", where any operator or institution in the participating countries would be allowed to acquire equity if it can afford the agreed contribution.

In the open access model, the cable would be owned and operated by the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a company created to manage the network and establish the price of bandwidth. An Intergovernmental Assembly is to be formed to regulate the costs that the SPV would charge operators. Rwanda will host the headquarters of the SPV in part as recognition of their commitment to the development and promotion of ICTs in the country.

After the agreement reached earlier in June, the Nepad e-Africa Commission is working towards the signing of a protocol that would form the legal framework of the EASSy project. The Commission has already prepared a project plan, which it has sent to the member governments to review and comment, a process that take until August, when the protocol signing is anticipated. Construction is expected to commence by the end of 2006.

Katiti said they hope to raise a quarter of the funding from equity acquisition payments by companies from the region and then raise the remainder from African financial institutions: African Development Bank, Comesa's PTA Bank, East African Development Bank and others.

Source: The Monitor - WDR/Intelecon Regulatory News