[SDI-Africa] Surveying and GIS

[Maurizio]

Interesting debate, particularly when witnessed by a GIS non professional as 
myself.

Although I would applaude such an initiative in any African country, I 
cannot but ask myself the question:
isn't this maybe, just maybe, just a way for the establishment to 
entrench/protect the status quo?

It appears to me that in the name of integrity and professionalism a 
burocracy is being set up by the industry with the blessing of the State as 
a way for traditional players to curb new independent professionals from 
competing. In the past the stumbling block for any independent was the 
exorbitant cost of base data. Now that base data has become freely available 
and independents can finally compete new ways have to be found to keep 
profit margins up.

I cannot but think of a particular incident I just witnessed where an 
engineer commissioned a large firm for contours of a certain piece of land. 
The quotation for the job was R4.000 (approx. $530). Chatting to the 
engineer I casually mentioned that CDSM - Survey and Mapping,  does make 
such data available to the public for R21/CD (approx $2,80) plus postage. 
Out of curiosity the engineer ordered the data for comparison purposes only 
to find out that it was exactly the same data. It was little consolation 
that the final invoice was decreased to R3000 ($400).

At AfricaGIS 2005 the industry was constantly criticising the State for data 
quality .... until when it was pointed out that most of the jobs are 
contracted out to the same companies who did the complaining.

I cannot but wonder ...

Ciao

Maurizio