Fiorina, Mbeki to launch Limpopo project

By Phillip de Wet for Hewlett-Packard SA

Johannesburg, 02 Sep 2002

HP CEO Carly Fiorina and president Thabo Mbeki are to launch a community technology project tomorrow evening at what is expected to be a glittering function.

The Magalakwena I-Community in the Limpopo province is to be one of a number of legacy projects linked to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, of which HP is a major technology sponsor. The company would not reveal details before the launch but the project is to involve a substantial investment commitment from HP.

The Magalakwena is a river in the former Northern Province that flows into the Limpopo, from which the area derived its new name.

Up to 500 of the several thousand PCs being used at the World Summit are to be donated to projects in Limpopo.

HP participates in a number of government technology projects in SA and elsewhere, and prides itself on the number of public-private partnerships in which it is involved. However, groups on the fringes of the summit under way in Johannesburg have called into doubt the value of such partnerships, saying they only allow big business more control over what is rightfully the domain of governments.

Shining example

On Sunday, the United Nations Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Task Force said it was a shining example of a public-private partnership.

"We are the first UN Task Force with a private, government and civil society component," said chairman Jose Maria Figueres at a press conference attended by HP senior VP Debra Dunn. Fiorina is a member of the task force and she is on SA`s Presidential IT Advisory Board.

The task force said the role of governments in bringing technology to developing countries should not be underestimated, but that private companies were equally important.

But outside the Sandton Convention Centre, grassroots group Friends of the Earth International was protesting under a huge banner proclaiming: "Don`t let big business rule the world." The protest, under the guise of an art exhibit to circumvent security restrictions, took place in the shadow of a six-metre tall, six-ton sculpture of a robot holding the globe in one of its pinchers.

Non-governmental organisations have decried the power of big business over negotiations at the summit and Friends of the Earth says involving private bodies at a policy level could be a mistake.

"In the old days it was clearer, when companies got contracts and everyone knew where they stood," one of the organisers says. "What exactly is a public private partnership?"