DPM Lini opens National ICT Development Committee meeting

On the absence of the Prime Minister, Joe Natuman, who left Thursday morning for Suva, Fiji, the Deputy Prime Minister, Ham Lini, officially opened the Fourth Meeting of the National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Development Committee at The Melanesian Hotel in Port Vila Thursday morning.

Speaking behalf of the Prime Minister, who is also Minister responsible for ICT and Telecommunications, Acting Prime Minister Lini, shared the country’s accomplishments and recent major projects in ICT. And he outlined some of the things the country needed to do now and in the future to keep the progress moving, adding that Vanuatu’s accomplishments in ICTs “are quite remarkable.”

“Our submarine fiber cable is working flawlessly, and the market for its products is increasing rapidly. Our Vanuatu Internet Exchange, the “VIX” is also working extremely well, and includes all the players in the market,” Lini said.

He added that the program to launch computer labs and tablets in the schools has attracted over 300 applications, an indication of “tremendous excitement in the villages and islands across the country” about the possibility for improving education through ICTs. He said that the country is also in the process of passing the Mobile E-Government Initiative and Strategy or “MGOV”, which will make Vanuatu the “first country in the world” to have developed such a detailed strategy.