Gov’t to review One Laptop project; defective equipment found

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Minister of State Joseph Harmon has met with the principals of the One Laptop Per Family Project (OLPF) where a review of the project was discussed.

Harmon’s visit to the OLPF office is part of the process of understanding what is happening with E-Governance and what is taking place in the Ministry of the Presidency and the project in particular.

According to a release from the Minister’s office, during Wednesday’s visit Harmon met with the project manager and observed that there is “nothing much” happening with the OLPF, and there is a large amount of unserviceable and defective laptops.

Harmon contended that this is as a result of bad sourcing of the equipment from the source country, China.

“He believes that the sourcing was done by persons who are independent of the management of the OLPF, noting that the team at OLPF is basically managing and administering equipment that were given to them, some of which he says was basically useless,” the release stated.

Minister Harmon concluded that government will at this time review the operations of the project, and the linkage between what is done with computers and what is done with the entire E-Governance project.

He pointed out there is a gap between the OLPF, E-Governance project and the delivery of internet service to rest of the country that needs to be properly explained, noting that nothing can be done with the laptops he has seen in storage at the OLPF office.

He added that the bulk of the laptops were a gift, and Guyana had no real say in what was received.