Latest update January 17th, 2025 6:30 AM
GT&T explains payment to OP
– money less than $1M US over ten years
Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Co. Ltd. (GT&T), Yog Mahadeo, yesterday confirmed that the Company makes a mandatory payment of 0.1 per cent of its annual gross revenues to the Office of the President (OP).
Mahadeo said that the money is not a gift to OP but rather, a contractual obligation. “This annual fee has been paid every year since 1992.”
GT&T, according to Mahadeo, is required to pay an annual fee to the Government of Guyana.
Chief Executive Officer of GT&T Yog Mahadeo
He explained that the Licence directs GT&T to pay the annual fee to the “Minister assigned responsibility for telecommunications, on behalf of the Government.”
According to Mahadeo, for many years GT&T paid the annual fee to the Ministry of Public Works as the Ministry with responsibility for telecommunications under Prime Minister Sam Hinds.
However, this changed in 2008 when President Bharrat Jagdeo assumed the portfolio of the Minister of Telecommunications.
Mahadeo did stress that at no time has GT&T paid this annual fee, nor any other sum, “to any specific person(s) in or associated with the Office of the President.”
Among some of the other fees GT&T pays are spectrum fees that have been paid directly to the National Frequency Monitoring Unit which averages some $300M per annum.
GT&T also pays dividends to NICIL as it relates to the 20 per cent shares owned by Government in the company. It also pays other applicable taxes to the GRA.
The 0.1 per cent payment to Office of the President averages some $16M a year according to Mahadeo and fluctuates in light of the variations.
This would mean that over the 10 years dating back to 2001, the total payment was less that US$1 million.
On Sunday, Kaieteur News reported that some US$50 million was paid to Office of the President. This was a gross misrepresentation.
According to Office of the President, the headline that the money was gifted was an indictment that Office of the President and GT&T were in collusion for the payment of bribes.
Kaieteur News apologises for this misrepresentation. It had also stated that the payment was being done in secret.
According to Mahadeo, that payment is reflected in the records of GT&T as should be the case also with the receiving entity.
When asked if the information was public knowledge, Mahadeo said that while it is public knowledge, finding the specific details publicly as it relates to that payment could prove to be difficult.
When this newspaper initially learnt of the payment being made to Office of the President, contact was made with the Shadow Finance Minister Winston Murray who said that he can say without fear of contradiction that no such arrangement was made when the privatisation of the then Guyana Telecommunications Corporation was finalised.
It turned out that the payment was stipulated in the privatisation agreement.
Murray said that he was not aware when the decision was made to have any money paid to Office of the President.
Contact was also made with a senior source at the Audit Office of Guyana who said that any such payment to Office of the President should be reflected on their revenue statement but this seems not to be the case.
In addition to these payments, the telephone company pays $25 million to the Public Utilities Commission each year by way of a regulatory licence.
Unused money by the PUC is returned each year to the Public Treasury.
GT&T’s current licence comes to an end in January next year and the company has already formally applied to the government for a further 20-year operating licence in keeping with the clause in the original contract which allows the entity to apply for a renewal of its licence.
The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company was privatised in 1991 when Atlantic TeleNetwork acquired majority shares in the company.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
No conflict of interest exists
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- Accusations of conflict of interest have a peculiar way of rising to the surface in Guyana.... more
Clarifying misconceptions about the Panama Canal
Sir Ronald Sanders (Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the US and the OAS) By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News–... more
Weekend Cartoon
