Liquid completes historic fibre project
HARARE - Liquid Telecom, Africa’s leader in digital infrastructure, has completed one of the most audacious projects ever built on the continent, according to its founder and chairman of the Econet Group, Strive Masiyiwa.
The latest project, which connects East and West Africa with a new high-capacity fibre link running 2, 600-kilometre (km) across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been ongoing for the past decade.
“Next week on Tuesday President Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC will officially commission our fibre link, which runs from the port city of Moanda on the Atlantic, through Kinshasa the Capital, to Lubumbashi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and all the way to Cape Town,” Masiyiwa said.
“Once in Zambia, the cable joins the Liquid cable that runs to East Africa and on to Egypt. It will also create the
first crossing of Africa from West to East, by fibre cables. I consider this project one of the most important in my entire 35-year career as an African entrepreneur.” The multi-million dollar fibre project will lay and create a foundation for social mobility, economic diversification and private sector-led growth both in the DRC and more widely across Africa.
It also underscores Liquid Telecom’s commitment to bring high-speed connectivity to every African on the continent.
The pan-African telecommunications firm, which has installed more than 70, 000 kilometres of fibre across Africa and operates five data centres in South Africa, Kenya
and Rwanda, in February raised US$840 million in a bond and loans to refinance debt and expand further into the continent.
Until recently, no direct, land-based fibre network existed between East and West Africa. Network traffic between Kinshasa in the DRC and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, for example, was routed via London. Liquid Telecom’s East to West fibre link promises significantly reduced latency between major continents via Africa.
It also meets the growing demand from global enterprises for fast, reliable, high-capacity and cost-effective communication across the southern hemisphere. – THE HERALD, Zimbabwe.
ASlawyers, we use what we call “Canons of interpretation” to understand what the law is or ought to be. There are various canons we apply when faced with an interpretation of law.
The first and most used canon is called “literal interpretation” which simply means that you take the way the law reads without reading much into it.
For example, minimum Grade 12 qualifications means just that - that is to say you must have full Grade 12 certificate to stand or its equivalent.
What is equivalent in this case is the other qualifications similar to Grade 12. This may be Form 5 certificate of Zimbabwe or Matriculation Certificate of South Africa. These are equivalent to our Grade 12.
Anything higher, as the ConCourt rightly stated, is not equivalent to Grade 12. Literal interpretation.
You see, to enter ZIALE, you need to have LLB or Law Degree. But now ZIALE management insists that you first produce your Grade 12 before they look at your degree. Hence a good number of law degree holders have been chased from ZIALE. Show your minimum qualifications first!
If the literal interpretation produces absurd results, you move to the next canon of interpretation. We call this “mischief rule” which seeks to go into the mind of parliamentarians when they passed the law.
In this case, what was the mischief parliament intended to resolve. If the issue was that a Grade 12 would normally read and write English, then surely the higher qualifications of PhD without Grade 12 qualification suffices for one to stand as Member of Parliament.
But then, how did one obtain that PhD without the minimum entry qualifications? However, if that was the real intention of Parliament - then the drafting of the constitution would have captured that by inserting a clause that “Grade 12 Certificate or equivalent or any higher qualifications.” Currently, the constitution did not include the “higher qualifications” than Grade 12. Anyway, the issue is between literal interpretation vs mischief rule. The ConCourt went for the literal interpretation. But then we are advised when interpreting the constitution to always apply the purposive interpretation, which simply means understanding the purpose behind the law.
For now, the Concourt has given us the literal interpretation which we have to live with unless someone goes back to court under the “slip rule” and have this clarified!
Such is law. That is why lawyers do not agree and end up in court to have a neutral arbiter have a final say!
DICKSON JERE.