Telecommunications liberalisation to be streamlined within a week – Govt

After many years of delay, Guyana’s telecommunications sector is expected to become fully liberalised within a week’s time – more than four years after the legislation was passed in the National Assembly.
In July 2016, the APNU/AFC Government passed the Telecommunication (Amendment) Bill to liberalise the telecoms sector by ending the monopoly which the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph (GTT) has enjoyed for over 26 years.
However, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo pointed out during a press conference on Friday that it is now more than four years since the passage of the legislation, and Guyana is yet to have full liberalisation.
He noted that former Telecommunications Minister under the APNU/AFC Coalition, Cathy Hughes, was supposed to sign an order to bring the new law into effect, but did not.
“The Minister did not [sign the law into effect, but] they signed a secret agreement with GTT that nobody knows of – we found (out) recently – which seems to be negotiating, rather than bringing the law into effect.”
As such, Jagdeo noted that the PPP/C administration is hoping to liberalise the sector within a week’s time. He added that a lot of preparation has been done in this regard.

“So, we have spent the last couple of weeks now going through this in great detail, because liberalisation is a promise we made a long time ago; both parties agreed to this, and we need to get it implemented. We’re hoping by next week that could happen. But we have to go through a ton of technical work to do that,” the Vice President posited.
Jagdeo had first expressed concerns over the “secret agreement” back in February while in Opposition. He had noted that it was signed after the March 6, 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Coalition Government and GTT to signify the beginning of the process of liberalisation.
Currently, there are two telecommunications companies – GTT and DIGICEL – which provide mobile phone services to the Guyanese public.
However, GTT continues to enjoy the monopoly in international voice and data services until 2030.
Under the coalition Government, it was reported that the liberalisation of the sector is heavily dependent upon the settlement of a US$44 million tax claim against GTT by the Guyana Revenue Authority.
According to reports, the local telecommunication giant wanted the tax debt settled before moving ahead with liberalisation.
But Vice President Jagdeo on Friday disclosed that there will be no conditions for the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in Guyana.
“The law was passed already, so the tax matters would all have to be discussed, but the liberalisation is not dependent on that – dependent on a settlement there. If that’s the case, then GTT could say we never reached a settlement with you, then you can never liberalise. So that is not a condition of liberalisation – reaching an agreement on the tax matter,” Jagdeo asserted.
The liberalisation, once in place, would ensure there was fair competition and regulation among all enterprises in the business sector.
According to the VP, this will set the stage for the installation of 5G services here, increased competition to allow for more fiberoptic cables to come in, operation of data, among other benefits.
“It sets up the basis for the ICT platform in which we wanna create thousands of jobs,” he stated.
The coalition administration had a deadline in 2018 for the liberalisation of the telecoms sector, but cited delays in the process due to several issues.
In fact, former Minister Hughes had contended at the time that liberalisation would have been achieved before 2020. (G8)