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Enough is enough

Jun 16, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company (GT&T) has once again been victimized by the PUC’s new-found practice of issuing press releases on Friday night making accusations against GT&T without first contacting GT&T to determine whether the press release is accurate.
This is obviously an attempt by the PUC to seize a public relations advantage over GT&T by gaining press coverage in Saturday’s newspapers before GT&T can respond to correct the record. GT&T does not know why the PUC is stooping to this practice, but the time has come to ask why.

Is the PUC pulling out all stops to prevent GT&T from following through on its binding contractual commitments to build the first submarine fibre optic cable to land in Guyana?
Why do they seem to want to hinder a project that is crucial to Guyana’s future, a project which GT&T has undertaken at its own cost and risk? We do not know the answer, but the question needs to be asked.
The PUC’s threat to recommend giving other international licences in violation of Guyana law and GT&T’s licence is disturbing.
Does this mean that the PUC have given up on the ongoing negotiations between GT&T and the Government to obtain GT&T’s consent to relinquish its exclusive franchise at the end of next year? We do not know the answer, but the question needs to be asked.
The PUC’s licensing threat is especially curious since the PUC has no authority to issue an international licence.

Even more curious, giving a licence to other international carriers will not prevent fibre optic cables from being cut in Suriname which is what happened in this case.
Nor would giving a licence to other carriers stop unknown parties from engaging in a campaign of dirty tricks against GT&T to sabotage GT&T’s cable facilities in Guyana, which is what also happened in this case. We do not know the answers, but these questions need to be asked.
To set the record straight, there was a cut in the Americas-II cable connectivity on Thursday due to road construction in Suriname.
The cut was repaired in four hours. No voice communications were interrupted, as GT&T has sufficient satellite back-up capacity. Full data connectivity also was preserved for subscribers whose services included a redundancy feature. No national security issues were raised.

In addition, GT&T’s services in Regions 7, 8 and 10 were interrupted due to an act of sabotage near Loo Creek on the Linden Highway where unknown parties used a chain saw to fell one of GT&T’s riser poles carrying the southern link fibre optic cable.
Is this the beginning of an orchestrated campaign to damage GT&T’s operations and good will through planned disruptions in order to make a case for giving another carrier an international licence?
We do not know the answer, but the question needs to be asked.
Finally, we would note that the nation has experienced a series of severe electrical outages. Where are the PUC’s press releases expressing outrage? Why isn’t the PUC threatening to recommend giving licences to new electrical companies? And what about the sewerage sector? We do not know the answers, but the questions need to be asked.
We have other concerns about the PUC’s public intervention on this matter, which we will raise in an appropriate way and in the proper forum.
Allison Parker

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