Students can expect laptops in eight weeks – Gonsalves

Secondary school students here should be able to show off their brand new laptops in time for the second term.{{more}}

During a handover ceremony of desktop and laptop computers and other instruments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday, Senator Camillo Gonsalves, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that the electronic gear would be available to the students by April.

“We are finalizing negotiations for the remaining 12,500 laptop computers. Everything has been signed; all the ‘t’s have been crossed and all the ‘i’s have been dotted, and students should be expecting their laptops in roughly eight weeks time, because that task has been completed.”

In September last year, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that 15,000 laptops, valued at approximately US $6 million, were to be distributed to students in secondary schools.

The Prime Minister said that the items were sourced by a publisher of computer magazines who resides on the Grenadine island of Mustique, and were being paid for by the Venezuelan government.

They said that the Acer laptops, equipped with three years software and a bag to carry them, were worth about US $400 each.

“So, the Venezuelans have said to me, provide them with the details and everything; so I’ve written back to this entity which is supplying the laptops, so that the Venezuelans would pay them directly the five million, and the other one, we will find it somehow,” the Prime Minister said back then.