Issued by: Minister Jay Naidoo
South Africa's Posts and Telecommunications Minister, Jay Naidoo, began an ambitious 16 000km journey on Tuesday, aiming to drive from the continent's most northerly point to its southern tip in less than 3 weeks.
Called the African Connection Rally, Minister Naidoo's two 4x4 vehicles will cross 11 countries in the trip, from Bizerte in Tunisia to Cape Agulhas in South Africa. The rally aims to promote the development of information superhighways across the continent, highlighting the telecommunication needs and investment opportunities now being presented by efforts to improve connectivity in Africa. With 700 million people and only 14 million telephone lines, Africa is seen as one of the largest potential markets for telecommunication services.
Naidoo will be opening public access telecentres in several countries along the way and will encourage the twinning of cities in South Africa with others on the continent.
The Rally was given a ceremonious flag-off in Bizerte,Tunisia early yesterday morning, and was welcomed at the Libyan border that afternoon by a large crowd of Libyan government officials and citizens, traditional musicians and a guard of honour.
The first twinning of cities is expected to take place between Bizerte and Cape Town. Minutes before the rally's official start at 9.30 am yesterday, Cape Town Mayoress Nomaindia Mfeketo and Bizerte Mayor Mohammed Missaoui held a video-conference watched by hundreds of Tunisians who attended the flag-off. "I hope that Cape Town becomes the first city of Africa to twin with another city of Africa so that between Bizerte and Cape Town we shall form a highway not just in the sky but on the ground," said Naidoo in his farewell address to the Tunisians.
Shortly before the rally took off, Naidoo and Tunisia's Minister of Communication, Ahmed Friaa, officially opened a Publinet (a public internet centre), in Bizerte. Minister Friaa accompanied Naidoo on the first leg of the rally - about 700-km to Libya.
Naidoo and his team leaves Tripoli today (Wednesday) on the second leg of the rally to Cairo. Expected to last 21 days the rally will pass through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe on its way to South Africa, ending in Cape Agulhas on April 21st.
Information and pictures are being uploaded by the support team on a daily basis to the African Connection Web site - http://www.africanconnection.org - which will also house a large amount of background data on telecommunications, the Internet and information technology infrastructure in Africa.
The rally is a project of the Pan African Telecommunication Union (PATU) which recently moved its headquarters from Kinshasa to Nairobi as part of its restructuring process. The initiative began last year when the 44 member nations of PATU adopted a strategy called the African Connection which aims to efffect major improvements in the telecommunication infrastructure on the continent, with a target of 50 million lines to be installed over the next 5 years.
The Rally is the first phase of the African Connection, and is officially sponsored by telecommunications multinational, Siemens, and two of South Africa's telecom operators, Telkom and Vodacom. The second phase of the project is the establishment of telecentres in each of the 53 countries in Africa.
For further information and how to reach Minister Naidoo contact Sue De Villiers at +27-82-492-8634 or sdevilliers@icon.co.za. The minister is carrying a satellite phone and will be available to media from time to time.