By Jonathan Ugbal; Government House Correspondent
Cross River Governor, Senator Ben Ayade has discussed technicalities surrounding the design of the Calabar Smart City project with Chinese ICT giants Huawei.
This is part of the governor’s itinerary on his official trip to China from where he is supposed to depart for London soon official sources say.
Accompanied by some government functionaries, Ayade discussed the redesigning of the Calabar Smart City project CrossRiverWatch gathered months after he had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the company to provide cloud backed fourth generation (4G) long term evolution (LTE) network for Cross Riverians.
However, the details of the discussion are still sketchy with non of his ICT or media aides said to have traveled with him; a move the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Honorable John Lebo said was to avoid excessive spending.
But, Cross River State already boasts of almost 160 Kilometers of Fibre Optic cables with 129 kilometers constructed by MTN in a partnership with the then Senator Liyel Imoke’s administration, but there is yet any official comment explaining why the project is yet to be activated despite completion of the installation of components since early 2015.
Also, the Tinapa Knowledge City was inaugurated by former Governor Imoke with little or no activity going on there presently.
Governor Ayade however plans to provide 4G LTE network throughout the length of the proposed 260 kilometers Superhighway, which when completed will run across the state and serve as an evacuation corridor for the proposed Bakassi Deep Seaport.