[Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA]
The governments of Mauritius and Namibia, backed by Sun Microsystems and Oracle, have
established a joint IT company called SILNAM that will provide the platform for the import of IT
skills from Mauritius into Namibia.
The new company, to be based in Namibia, will comprise the skills and services from both
the Mauritian State Informatics Limited and Namibian IT solutions enterprise Namtec
Holdings.
The companies believe that this partnership will enable them to establish a platform
that will facilitate the export of IT skills to the rest of Africa.
State Informatics’ General Manager Taroon Japal comments that Mauritius, like
Namibia, is a small country and in order to grow revenues from the IT sector, an export
of these skills is the obvious method of expansion.
“Namibia is the same size as Mauritius and with their need to import IT skills and our
need to export them, it makes sense that we form an alliance,” he says.
State Informatics, established and funded by the Mauritian government, will export
skills including consulting, project management and software development skills to
Namibia.
The Mauritian company also makes extensive use of technologies from both Sun
Microsystems and Oracle, which will add further backbone to the software
development aspect of the skills export.
Initially, the Mauritian skills exports will be filtered through SILNAM into Namtec’s
enterprise, but the companies revealed that the eventual aim is to extend this into
Africa.
“We will develop a skills competency center, transferring IT skills to Namibia,” Japal
explains. “Our aim it to consolidate SILNAM in Namibia and then perhaps look further
north in Africa.”
This announcement forms part of the Mauritian government’s ambitious plans to
develop into an information-based economy, with expansive IT skills exports adding a
further dimension to Mauritius’ existing export industry which is primarily composed of
lucrative textile and sugar exports.
Namibia is the second country targeted, with the East Indian island of Madagascar
being the first nation to partner Mauritius in their export initiative.