Accra, Jan. 25, GNA - Work on the 30 million-dollar E-governance backbone Project is expected to begin soon, Mr Gideon Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communication said on Monday.

The Management of China-based HUAWEI Telecom was awarded the contract to undertake government's e-governance project in April 2006 to provide centralized information technology and e-services to Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies. The contract was renewed in 2008 and the first batch of materials is expected in April, 2010 for site construction work to begin in May. The project is expected to end in December 2010, Mr Quarcoo said at a meeting with the experts on the project in Accra. He asked the team of information technology experts from HUAWEI Telecom and the National Information Technology Authority to solicit views from other sources for an efficient and effective implementation of the project. Mr Quarcoo urged the team to ensure the project covered the entire country.

Mr Jackie Shen, Product Manager of HUAWEI, said it would be difficult to connect the entire country because most areas had no access to fibre, micro wave and connectivity. He explained that when the project was initiated in 2006, there were 138 metropolitan, municipal and districts but had been increased to 170. He said Wa and Bolgatanga might not be connected because there was no fibre, however, by August 2010 Visat would be connected to these areas in the absence of the fibre.