– as PUC, GCA meet to discuss rates submitted by GTT
More back-and-forth arguments between the commissioners and members of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), GTT, and the Guyana Consumers Association (GCA) have seen yet another adjournment of the landline rates increase hearing on Monday.
At the last hearing held in December last year, the PUC had requested that the telecommunications company provide a summary of the updated cost model and a
Commissioners of the PUC, along with executives of GCA, meet with executives of GTT in PUC’s conference room on Monday
response to a letter from the GCA. However, there seemed to have been some misunderstanding since, although the documents were presented on Monday, the PUC Chairman, Justice Prem Persaud and Commissioner Maurice Solomon said they were seeking specifically written details on numbers in the module.
This sparked some arguments as GTT maintained that the Commission was in receipt of the model for some three years and that it was time that the hearing move from this point.
GTT’s consultant, Gene Evelyn, told the Commission that it would be difficult for his team to, at that time, provide the answers being sought. In fact, he reasoned that it would be rather difficult to summarise the information in the memorandum, which, he stressed, has wide-ranging content.
“The model was with the Commission since 2014. The details that you are requesting are in the model. It is not a case of the information not being submitted; the information has been submitted, it is there,” Evelyn told the Commission.
A memorandum was submitted on request of the Consumers Association. Evelyn said Commissioners also have that memorandum in their possession as it was provided to the body.
In 2014, GTT had applied to raise the domestic rates for most of its services. The application proposed increases for services such as installation, transfers, additional jacks, wake-up calls, three-way calling, voicemail, call forwarding and reconnection. It also sought to increase rates for intra-exchange calls during peak hours by 40 per cent and during non-peak hours by 60 per cent. The current intra-exchange call rate is $.60 (peak) and $.30 (non-peak). For inter-exchange calls (from one zone to another), it proposed an increase of 20 per cent for both peak and non-peak hours. The current rates for peak hours per minute are Zone A $3, B $4, C 5$ and D $7. During non-peak hours the rates are $2, $3.6, $4.8 and $5, respectively. The PUC had rejected the application in 2015.
GTT Chief Executive Officer Justin Nedd told the Commissioners that it was time that the process moved ahead.
“You have all the information; we have provided you with our financial statements, you’ve got the models, you’ve got access to our analysts, you’ve got all the traffic information and you see that the traffic on local and international calls is reducing. I am really at a loss as to what the expectation is because we have expended hundreds of man hours and hundreds of thousands of US dollars providing the information… So, I don’t want it to be a case where every time we come here it’s a shift and go… but we have supplied all the information,” Nedd said
After further deliberations and deeper explanation, the Commission made a decision to meet at a later date, if necessary. Before that next meeting however, the Consumers Association and Commissioners will meet to go through the information presented by GTT.
