Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has stated that incumbent Public Telecommunications Minister Cathy Hughes has the power to end the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) ongoing monopoly over the sector.
Speaking at his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo pointed out that the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 2016 paved the way to liberalise the local telecommunications market by ending GTT’s 20-plus year control. However, he noted that the order to enact that legislation has not been signed by Minister Hughes.
Public Telecommunications Minister Cathy Hughes
“We can end it! The Minister just has to sign the order. That’s all she has to do now. We worked towards that legislation. Ask her why she’s not signing the order…,” the Opposition Leader asserted.
He noted that if the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) gets into power after next week’s General and Regional Elections, it will look into the reason behind the delays in signing the order to pave way for the much-anticipated liberalisation.
For years now, stakeholders have been calling for a levelled playing field in the telecoms sector. But the liberalisation of the sector is heavily dependent upon the settlement of a US$44 million tax claim against GTT.
Presently, GTT is one of two telecommunications companies which provide mobile phone services to the Guyanese public. However, the company will continue to enjoy the monopoly in international voice and data services until 2030 – an area in which Digicel has been trying to expand its services here.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo
Negotiations with GTT to lift its control of the sector began in 2016 with the intention of ending the 26-year monopoly on the fixed-line market.
Hughes had recently blamed the former PPP/C regime for renewing GTT’s monopoly contract in 2010 for another 20 years after it had already enjoyed 20 years control. But this claim was rubbished by Jagdeo, who was the Head of State at the time.
In fact, he threw the blame back at the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) – the leading party in the APNU fraction of the incumbent coalition administration. He explained that it was under the PNCR regime that 80 per cent of the then Guyana Telecommunications Corporation (GTC), a public company, was sold and in that contract, a 40-year monopoly was given to the company.
In fact, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GTT, Yog Mahadeo, in a social media post had stated the same.
He pointed out that the renewal of the monopoly telecoms licence was a contractual right of the licence holder and not dependent on the then-administration. He added that the licence holder considered the licence to be renewed by operation of law and contract by its issuance of a notice of exercise of a right.
“It should be noted that the 1991 Government of Guyana’s agreement (contract) gave the monopoly licence holder that peculiar right of renewal. That right was theirs to exercise by simply giving notice to the other party (which was the Government). Thus, the Government of 2010 had no say in the renewal of the contract. They could not refuse, reject, delay or do anything as their only role was to “receive” the notification,” Mahadeo stated.
The former GTT Boss also referenced a letter to the editor from December 2010 in which then Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Chairman, Joseph Tyndall, had indicated that “The licence is renewable at GT&T’s option and, no doubt, GT&T, which has always shown great diligence where its interests are concerned, may have notified the government of its decision to exercise this option. According to the licence, renewal is mandatory (“shall be renewable”) if the option is exercised…”
To this end, Jagdeo called out the Public Telecommunications Minister for misleading Guyanese on the matter.
“Cathy Hughes… lying on the PPP, saying that we gave the monopoly, we extended the monopoly for GTT… So today, when the service is so poor and people complain, they blame the People’s Progressive Party but I think Cathy Hughes is the one to be blamed and we need to ask her why she did not, based on what they promised to do, liberalised the telecommunications sector,” he stated.
According to the Opposition Leader, something must have gone wrong in the process.
He noted that the PPP Administration had initiated negotiations with GTT since 2006 to end its monopoly. In fact, he recalled former Attorney-General Doodnauth Singh leading one of those negotiating teams.
However, he explained that the company wanted the Government to write off all of the tax obligations.
“We said at that time, we are not going to write taxes that come out of assessments from GRA (Guyana Revenue Authority). That would be the executive interfering with GRA. We said taxes arising from the interpretation of the 1990 agreement, those we can deal with… But that got dragged on,” he noted.
The former President went on to say that a special parliamentary committee team was set up to draft the legislation to end the monopoly of the telecoms sector and it was the same document that was used by the coalition government to pass the law in 2016 and they are yet to move the process forward to effectively end the monopoly.
