MOZAMBIQUE ICT CONVENTION 2008: AITEC Chairman challenges Mozambique telecom operators to share infrastructure

To see the PDF of the programme for this conference or to download the presentations go to http://www.aitecafrica.com/event/view/2

In his opening speech, AITEC Africa Chairman, Sean Moroney, called on the country’s telecom operators to look beyond crude competitive capitalism to find ways of sharing infrastructure to accelerate the roll-out of services across the country. In his keynote address to the Convention, Tim Ellis, Cisco’s Director of Vertical Sales in Africa, supported this approach, saying it was vital for communications to be developed in the country on an open access, shared infrastructure basis.

Venancio Massingue, Minister of Science & Technology, congratulated AITEC on the success of the event and called for it to be held on an annual basis in order to help develop the country’s ICT sector. Twenty-six local and international experts made presentations over the two-day conference, covering a wide range of ICT topics. (See full programme at http://www.aitecafrica.com/event/view/2 )

The event also included an exhibition, with 23 international and local vendors of hardware, software and services showcasing their products.

The full text of Moroney’s opening speech follows:

Speech by Sean Moroney, Chairman of AITEC Africa, at the opening of the Mozambique ICT Convention

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this the first Mozambique National ICT Convention. We hope this is going to be the first of a regular series of annual events to bring the country’s ICT community together to share knowledge, network and do business together. AITEC Africa has been engaged in ICT publishing, conferences, exhibitions and training in Africa since 1987, and although we did a small conference and exhibition here in 2001, I’m sorry it has taken us so long to organize a major conference to serve the information needs of the country’s ICT sector.

I want to thank the Minister for setting us the challenge of organising this event - and the opportunity of holding it under the auspices of the Ministry. I want to thank our sponsors, Mcel, Cisco, TDM and SAP whose financial support made this event possible.

The timing of the Convention is ideal. The market has matured significantly over the past five years, with a multiplication of ICT service providers and vendors, and increasingly sophisticated installations by major companies.

But all this is but a precursor to the major impact that will result from the landing of two undersea fibre cables within the next two years. The shortage and cost of bandwidth are suddenly no longer going to be major constrains on the development of the sector. However, this also presents great challenges. Are we ready to make use of this plentiful, cheap bandwidth? We need to start developing new services and applications that take advantage of this bandwidth explosion and are relevant to improving the quality of life for all Mozambicans.

I hope issues like this will be thoroughly discussed during the conference.

And just as importantly, we need to plan now to break down the internal monopolistic barriers that could continue to maintain bandwidth costs at a high level despite international availability. We need to ensure that the benefits of low-cost bandwidth will be passed on to end-users throughout this vast country. 

The last five years have also seen a dramatic spread of mobile services. FIGURES. But again, this has been constrained by a duopolistic regime based on a simplistic system of capitalistic competition. The ego mania of uncreative competitive capitalism has created what I call the country’s “twin tower” landscape, where up and down the national highways duplicate sets of towers are set up within a stone’s throw of each other. Somehow the operators think they can demonstrate competitiveness in this way, instead of sharing infrastructure and competing at the far more meaningful level of quality of service. One industry estimate is that the cost of tower construction represents 70% of network roll-out investment. It’s great business for the tower construction contractors but I think any first year university student would conclude that this approach imposes a major constraint on telecommunications infrastructure development. We have to ask ourselves, why are these absurdities allowed to persist? Government and the private sector need to put their heads together to agree an optimum strategy for the rapid roll-out of low-cost bandwidth on a shared infrastructure basis. TDM is the key player in this regard and could become the carrier of carriers across the country to the benefit of all.

It is time for us to move beyond the crude capitalism, driven primarily by rapacious greed, so ably discredited by Bush, Cheney and their cronies, to a new era of creative capitalism where collaboration for the common good mediates cut-throat competition, and where corporate social responsibility becomes more than just a token line item in the annual marketing budget.

I am making these points in all humility as an outsider, but with the interests of Mozambique and Africa very close to my heart. Perhaps it helps being an outsider to provide some fresh perspectives.

I say this, also because I want to touch on yet another sensitive issue in Mozambique: Corruption. It is gratifying that firm measures are being taken by the government against certain politicians accused of high-level corruption. But in a society where corruption penetrates every level (even at school level where achievement is stifled by bribery to pass exams), as ICT professionals we have to ask ourselves, what is our role in the fight against corruption? From numerous conversations I have had with users and vendors, it is clear to me that bribes are common in the awarding of ICT contracts – even among some of the donor organizations that would be the first to condemn African corruption!

I humbly suggest that it is time, as the market expands and matures,  for ICT professionals in this country to form two professional bodies, not only to fight corruption, but also to address issues of standards, training and professional development:

• Firstly, the vendors and service providers could form an ICT Suppliers Association, which could require members to subscribe to a code of business ethics. Of course, some may not join; some may join and still transgress the code. But at least a bench-mark of ethical behaviour would have been established to which the industry as a whole could aspire. The association could play other valuable roles, such as lobbying and advising the government on legislation and regulations affecting the industry. Such as working with universities and other training institutions on course content and qualification standards; also working with them on internship and mentoring programmes; even creating scholarship programmes. The country needs to rapidly increase the pool of qualified ICT professionals and this challenge cannot be left entirely to government.
• Secondly, ICT professionals could form a National ICT Society to represent the interests of ICT users. This could also adopt a code of conduct to resist corrupt practices creeping in to the awarding of ICT contracts. But the objectives could be much wider than that, to include issues of professional development, education, lobbying and advising government. Unfortunately ICT professionals across Africa tend to work in isolation, with very little dialogue with, or support from, fellow professionals. We need to create a more supportive, intellectually stimulating environment for ICT professionals to improve standards across the board and help stem the brain drain which continues to erode the county’s ICT skills capacity.

But it is vital that if such bodies are created that from the start strong democratic procedures and structures are put in place. Unfortunately many African computer societies have tended to mirror national politics, with Presidents-for-Life presiding over them for years, maintaining an iron grip on the coffers funded by the subscriptions of naïve young professionals hoping to contribute to the betterment of their profession and themselves.

I feel particularly strongly about the scourge of corruption in Mozambique because one of my dearest friends paid the ultimate price in his valiant fight against it: Carlos Cardoso. Carlos and I were close friends at university in South Africa and comrades in the fight against Apartheid. I want to take this opportunity to pay my tribute to him for the brave campaign he waged against corruption in Mozambique. He was fearless against great odds, and we must not forget the supreme sacrifice he and his colleague António Siba-Siba Macuácua made to give his country a better future. Please can we all stand to remember them for one minute.

Remembering is not enough, as the Mozambique Revolution taught us all in Southern Africa, and as Carlos would have shouted out to us now, “A luta continua”. Let us all rise to that challenge.