PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo, recognizing the impressive growth achieved by Qualfon Guyana over the years, has reiterated that with the two new fibre optic cables expected, more and more opportunities can be generated here.
The Head of State yesterday paid a visit to Qualfon Guyana Centre at Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, which officially opened its doors in November, 2005.
“For a long while I have been promising Qualfon, from the very beginning when they set up about four years ago, that I will visit. I never got around to it but I am glad that I came here today,” he said.
The President observed that there has been impressive growth at the company, following its humble beginnings.
“ And, I think it due to, first of all, their commitment to come here when the going was very difficult, at that time they had a whole range of issues surrounding the provision of bandwidth and its reliability.”
He said that the company had to make special arrangements, including satellite redundancy, to “get to where they are today” with over 1200 young people working there.
“This is a really, really impressive performance by the company, and from what I gather, the company is now managed entirely by Guyanese so that is a huge achievement too,” he insisted.
He noted that he has always said that cheaper and more reliable bandwidth could generate 25,000 jobs, recalling, “I  said this five years ago even when we were campaigning for the 2006 elections.”
“And this company has, because of that issue being resolved later this year, that is with new fibre optic cables coming in, has really, really impressive expansion plans ,” he disclosed.
President Jagdeo anticipated that tens of thousands of Guyanese could find opportunities in this sector, once “we have these cables coming into the country providing more reliable bandwidth.”
President Jagdeo said the Government has had negotiations with the Brazilians, adding, “I think the contract has been signed now for the purchase of the bandwidth, and I can assure you, it’s a fraction of the cost that we currently pay for bandwidth now, probably less than five per cent of the cost than you pay.”
“We have gone out to tender for civil works contractors to ditch and lay the cable, and I think they have already selected the supplier of the cable,” he told reporters.
“So I anticipate within the next two or three months all of these pieces will come together and we will start laying that cable. And then GT&T’s (Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company) cable should be here hopefully by mid-year, so I think this is really good for the country to have in one year two new fibre optic cables with tremendous capacity which will bring down the cost of bandwidth significantly, and also add to making Guyana a much more attractive destination for this sort of investment”.
“You are going to have two new fibre optic cables coming into Guyana, one by GT&T and one by the Government of Guyana, and I hope that between GT&T and the Government, we would swap bandwidths to have greater reliability,” he expressed.
Chief Operations Officer, Ms. Alejandra Romero, said the years were, indeed, challenging for the company, but management turned the challenges into areas of opportunity and emerged successfully  in their endeavors, presently being the second biggest Qualfon Centre with a working pool who speaks English as the first language, and having formed a respectable relationship with the Government of Guyana through the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST).
She said they started out with 50 agents, but have now reached a total of over 1200, one hundred per cent Guyanese.
Among Qualfon Guyana’s noted achievements are the opening of its foundation in 2006, which has helped with the distribution of milk, installing their first radio station to improve their services, and being recognized with the Best Partner Award by their clients, thanks to their world class Guyanese workforce.
Qualfon is a Business Process and Contact Center Outsourcing provider with international presence around the globe, and the company that can adapt quickly and successfully to any service requirements via telephone, web, fax, email, and SMS.