GTT hit by more acts of sabotage

Service disruption

– sets up reward for info
The GTT has been hit by more acts of sabotage, this time affecting its cable in the vicinity of Long Creek, Soesdyke-Linden Highway, and resulting in loss of service to customers in Linden, Kwakwani, and as far as the township of Mahdia, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).
A missive from GTT Communications Manager Jasmine Harris noted that the cable providing service along the southern link was severed, resulting in service interruptions in those areas on Friday.
“Investigations revealed a direct act of external sabotage in the vicinity of Long Creek…few have the motive or resources to perform this heinous act, and GTT will ensure a thorough investigation is done,” Harris stated.
“The team has worked assiduously throughout the night (Saturday) until 06:00h (Sunday) to restore this disruption, which affected over 12,000 customers. GTT does not take lightly this type of interruption, and as such has instituted a reward for anyone with the pertinent information to bring the perpetrator to justice.”

The company urges persons with pertinent information to contact the GTT Vandalism Hotline on 0908 or 226-2764. It would not be the first time that GTT has been faced with sabotage. Previous incidents have also resulted in rewards being instituted for information
Last year, after the company had reported that its cables had been sabotaged, a reward of $500,000 was offered for the capture of those responsible. The telecommunications giant had also announced that it planned to meet with the relevant Ministers of Government to discuss the spate of sabotage plaguing the company.
The company has previously lauded the role members of the respective communities where the sabotage was being conducted have played in capturing some saboteurs. The company had noted that those community members had acted on appeal of GTT to say something if they saw something.
The first act in the recent series of sabotage was detected on July 14, 2017, one day before GTT officially launched the Blaze fibre-optic high-speed Internet. At one point, the company’s fibre-optic cable was also sabotaged at a time when it launched its high-speed LTE broadband in Essequibo.
The company had also revealed that, over a 12-month period from September 2016 onwards, their loss of service and restoration effort had equated to $50 million. But there have been prosecutions.
Twenty-two-year-old Ricky Singh of Lot ‘F’ Grove, East Bank Demerara was in August placed on $350,000 bail upon being arraigned in court and denying that between July 22 and July 24, 2017, at Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara, he was caught vandalising and stealing the GTT fibre-optic cable.
Twenty-four-year-old fisherman Sanjay Seecharran of Grove Public Road, East Bank Demerara has also recently been jailed for three years after confessing to stealing fibre-optic cable from GTT.