GTT fibre-optic cable vandal granted $350,000 bail

Twenty-two-year-old Ricky Singh of Lot “F” Grove, East Bank Demerara (EBD) was on Friday arraigned before Georgetown Magistrate Annette Singh on a charge detailing that, between July 22 and July 24, 2017, at Soedyke, East Bank Demerara, he was caught vandalising and stealing fibre-optic cable belonging to GTT.

Singh pleaded not guilty to the charge, and was placed on bail in the sum of

Ricky Singh

$350,000. He is expected to return to Court on August 25, 2017.

During the month of July, criminal-minded persons had launched an attack on the GTT, sabotaging its cables over ten times within that month.

As a result of the vandalism, Linden, Ituni, Kwakwani, Mabura, Mahdia, Troy Mining, and communities in Bartica were affected.

CEO of GTT, Justin Nedd, had called on Guyanese to assist the company to capture the vandals, and had even offered a reward of $10 million in this respect. He had called the attack a destruction of GTT’s communication infrastructure by persons who had clear motives.

And Telecommunication’s Minister Cathy Hughes had also called the situation “sad,” and had disclosed that the perpetrators, when found, will face the full brunt of the law.

On July 24, GTT workers discovered that the company’s Blaze fibre optic cables at one location were sabotaged just one day before it was launched; and in February, similar vandalism was carried out when the company had just launched its high speed LTE broadband in Essequibo.

The estimated losses had amounted to some $50 million.