The Government of Guyana is getting ready to review the One Laptop Per Family project and it is expected that the multi million dollar initiative which was started under the previous administration will be scrapped.
Minister of State, Joe Harmon paid a visit to the OLPF office on Wednesday and was given a tour of the operations by the Director of the project, Margo Boyce.
According to a statement from the Minister’s office, a large number of useless and damaged laptops were found in storage and there appears to be nothing much taking place at the project’s headquarters.
Harmon believes that there was bad sourcing of the equipment from the source country, China when the project got started under the Jagdeo administration and continued under the Ramotar administration.
He told management at the OLPF project that the 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 said 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. The Minister noted that nothing can be done with the laptops he has seen in storage at the OLPF office.
Hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on the project under the previous government. There was a big scam involving the theft of a number of the laptops and those laptops which were meant for free distribution, were being sold to poor families.
An investigation was completed but no action was taken by the previous administration against those involved in the scam.
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