E11.37M SPENT ON RSTP’S NEW PROJECT

MBABANE –The Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) has spent E11.37 million on certain parts of its project titled Disaster Recovery Site.

The estimated total cost for the construction of the disaster recovery, known as DR, is E371.557 million. The costs for the DR construction are an addition to the E1.078 billion that government has spent on the construction of the Information Technology (IT) Park at Phocweni and Biotechnology Park at Nokwane. A DR site is a location used by an organisation for restoring its IT infrastructure and business-critical operations, when a primary production centre is affected by a natural or man-made disaster. They are often built in a remote location so as to ensure that the disaster, which has affected the main site, will not affect the secondary site as well.

It is said that creating a DR site allows an organisation to continue conducting operations and delivering services without disruption, until the primary location is restored. It could not be established what the E11.37 million has specifically been used for; but RSTP had requested for E8 million for site clearing in the 2021 financial year. In the 2022 financial year, the public enterprise, headquartered at Nokwane, Matsapha, had requested for E2.55 million for consultancy and training programme on developing the ISO 2700x related security compliance. It was also expected to utilise the money for architecture survey and backup data centre planning.

acquisition

In the current financial year, a sum of E50 million has been set aside for the construction and acquisition of passive and active equipment for the same project. There is an additional E10 million to support what they termed as ‘construction at the DRS in terms of Value Added Tax (VAT)’.  Senzo Malaza, the Senior Communications Officer at RSTP, said the DR project was ongoing. Malaza disclosed that the public enterprise accumulated costs for fencing the land on which the DR would be constructed. He mentioned that money was spent on the design of the infrastructure, environmental impact assessment and consultancy. “The project is going well,” Malaza said.  He said the DR project was a high risk that required top notch security. For security reasons, Malaza said RSTP would not disclose the location of the project.

The senior communications officer pointed out that the disaster recovery site would guarantee total safety and security for clients’ data. He said RSTP wanted to attract clients outside the country. “The only way we can attract those clients is to have the DR,” Malaza said. Asked what type of a recovery site project the RSTP was undertaking, he responded that they were constructing the ‘hot site’, not the cold site. He said a hot site DR location that is set up and ready to go, that is, one can arrive and continue to work immediately. He said ‘it runs concurrently with the primary site. A hot backup site will have equipment set up with the current data available, with all primary data centre functions copied and maintained off site.
On the other hand, a cold site is a backup facility with little or no hardware equipment installed. It is essentially an office space with basic utilities such as power, cooling system, air conditioning, and communication equipment, etc. A cold site is the most cost-effective option, among the three disaster recovery sites. Although the advantages of using a cold site are primary lower costs and no potential resources contention with other organisations, the biggest disadvantage is the time of recovery compared to other alternate sites.

strikes

Pertaining to this one, there is no way to verify its workability until real disaster strikes. His Majesty King Mswati III officially opened the RSTP on August 10, 2018. The King banked his hopes on the RSTP to turn the economy of the country around. He said Science and Technology Parks were critical for the sustainable development of the nation since they were the engine and heart of creativity and innovation of every country. “The establishment of a science, technology and innovation facility will propel the Kingdom of Eswatini to first world status by 2022, as it represents a great milestone in the country’s development agenda,” the King said then. He mentioned that science parks, world over, provided enabling infrastructure for the transformation of a traditional economy to a ‘knowledge economy’.

Ingwenyama pointed to the fact that such parks also provided locations that fostered innovation, development and commercialisation of technology and where governments, universities and private companies oftentimes collaborated. He added that he had seen countries without natural resources using science parks to generate billions of US Dollars.  He said Eswatini should use the parks to generate a turnover of E10 billion as a startup and as RSTP grew, the goal should be to generate E180 billion (US$10 billion). South Africa (SA) has an Innovation Hub (IH). It is the innovation agency of SA’s Gauteng Province and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency.  It was established by the provincial government to promote economic development and competitiveness of Gauteng, through fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. It offers a number of incubation programmes in the bioeconomy (agro processing and pharmaceutical), smart industries (ICT and advanced manufacturing) and green economy (water purification, waste management and renewable energy).
RSTP, in its website, said the high costs of ICT infrastructure have had a negative bearing, which has reduced budgets for their core services.

It is said that outsourcing such ICT services through the utilisation of external Data Centre can come as a solution to such high total cost of ownership. As a result, the RSTP’s National Data Centre (NDC) was created to provide IT managed services through the provision of advanced technology infrastructure, that will enable companies to outsource their ICT functions and services, thus focus the bulk of their effort and budget on the delivery of their core products and services. It is said that research laboratory facilities will support research and development efforts in biotechnology, to optimise the use of natural resources in the kingdom, and facilitate the uptake and commercialisation of that research. RSTP says there would be a focus on medical, industrial and agricultural biotechnology research. The Park is expected to establish partnerships with local university science departments to ensure knowledge generation of scientists and engineers.

technology

It will also commercialise knowledge in the sense that it says its technology transfer office will assist in finding the best route to market for new biotechnology innovations produced in Eswatini. Therefore, a biotechnology incubator has been set up to provide business and technical services for start-up biotechnology companies. The companies that are still in the initial development stage of their business will be housed in the business centre. It is also said that the Biotechnology Park will provide platforms to showcase, at global and national level, innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, especially in the field of biotechnology. RSTP explains that the Biotechnology Park serves as a focal point for, various regional bioscience networks as this will allow more efficient communication between national bioscience practitioners and those networks. The purpose of these parks is to provide a place where innovative businesses could develop and prosper. Most of technology parks provide ample space for business development.

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