The Uganda government wants Chinese information technology giant Huawei Technologies to undertake a forensic audit of its own works in laying the country’s main fibre-optic cable backbone under the National Backbone Initiative project’s first phase, and fix the glaring mistakes at the company’s cost.

The EastAfrican has learnt that following a directive from the Parliament Committee on ICT, the National Information Technology Authority — which governs the $106 million project —duly wrote to the Chinese firm a few weeks ago. Now Huawei faces the prospect of incurring huge losses after revising major parts of the cable.

The first phase involved laying fibre cable covering Kampala city, Entebbe, Mukono and Bombo towns to allow high-speed data and voice transfers especially between government offices, and lower costs of service delivery besides enhancing transparency and accountability.

However, it has emerged that the infrastructure is largely defective, but the contractor has already transferred it to the government. In some parts, the cable was laid in swampland, elsewhere there are no generators, and many trenches are too shallow — at less than the standard 1.5 metres below road level, meaning the cable is exposed to stress and damage.

The cable’s reliability is also not guaranteed, because its uptime is lower than the acceptable standards. Business process outsourcing, for instance, is not possible unless the cable can guarantee reliability.

Consequently, the project’s supposedly concluded first phase, which cost some $30 million, is not operational and is costing Uganda in terms of time, money and lost business opportunities. This situation could also act as a drag on regional inter-connectivity since the line in Uganda is supposed to connect to the East African Backhaul System.

The project is being funded through a concessional loan from the Exim Bank of China, to be repaid over a 20-year period.

“We are waiting for Huawei to respond. In fact, they are supposed to respond next [this] week. They must do a forensic analysis of phase one and fix the problems at their own cost before they move on to phase two,” said Parliamentary ICT Committee chair Nathan Igeme Nabeta.

However, a source from Huawei who is not the company’s spokesperson told The EastAfrican that first, any damages to the laid cable have been caused by numerous dig-ups in the city by various utilities to lay their infrastructure too, not Huawei.

Secondly, he said the initial phase is operational contrary to what legislators following up the matter have said, and it is in fact the government’s delay in establishing National Information Technology Authority that has delayed its utilisation. He added that, for good measure, at least 28 ministries are connected with video, voice and data at no operational costs to government.

The source said any damage to the laid cable was a result of haphazard works by utilities and not Huawei. The Chinese firm has also agreed a forensic analysis to determine whether the cable is defective.

In a recent meeting with ICT Ministry officials, Huawei insisted on each party coming up with experts and in case of any wrongdoing on the part of the contractor unearthed by the experts, the errors will be fixed.

At issue is implementation of the three-phase project, which was meant to have been concluded by this time, but has instead been mired in controversy since it started in 2006. It involved the laying of 2,100km of backbone fibre-optic cable and supply of e-government infrastructure.

However, only the first of three phases is finished. “At present, you cannot say there is value for money unless the fibre is operational and gives service to Ugandans. It can’t offer 98 per cent reliability, and when cable uptime is down, no one will give you business,” said Mr Nabeta.

Observers say the government blundered in starting the backbone fibre project without the required technical capacity to supervise the works. The National Information Technology Authority was only enacted mid last year and became operational later in the year. In other words, since 2006, Huawei has had no agency supervising its activities.

Apparently, Huawei is keen to continue with phase two — in fact, some preparatory work has already taken place as the company has imported more equipment and is digging trenches to lay more fibre. It is not clear whether the Chinese will have to halt these works in order to correct the mistakes in phase one.

Another key component of the backbone fibre project — taking up about 30 per cent of total spending — was the e-government infrastructure, entailing the supply of video conferencing and desk intercom equipment. However, most of the equipment is currently lying idle in government offices because the fibre that was meant to power it is not operational.

Some media reports recently have been critical of the cable type, the G652 24 core that the government agreed upon with the Chinese. The government-owed New Vision quoted unnamed experts saying that the cable being laid has low transmission capacity and that Uganda will soon need to upgrade it to G655.

However, experts involved in appraising the project told The EastAfrican that the G652 is a standard type used everywhere — at least Rwanda and Kenya are using it. “I don’t understand why they say the cable won’t work. It is a standard cable, the most widely used. It is sad when people make wild statements,” said Dr Ham Mulira, IT expert and the pioneer ICT minister, now senior presidential advisor on the sector.

The problem of inadequately planned and supervised projects — starting without a lead agency that can supervise the works and operations — is not new in Uganda’s ICT sector. Thus the regulatory Uganda Communications Commission was formed long after the sector had been liberalised — and it so happens that, to this day, the $5 million that MTN paid for its second national operator license in 1998 and Celtel’s licence fees four years earlier have not been accounted for.

Additional reporting by Esther Nakkazi