At long last the way is being paved for the opening up of the telecommunications sector to competition, as the Telecommunications Bill and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Amendment Bill are now with a Special Select Committee, following their second reading, for closer scrutiny before they are passed early next month.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, speaking in the National Assembly recently,  said provisions in the Telecommunications Bill have been written to create a new and comprehensive open regime that will be encouraging to existing participants and new entrants.

Hinds said it will encourage ingenuity in people and allow people to get value for money they spend on services.

“We need our service providers to be able to sustain themselves. This is the mandate of the PUC,” the Prime Minister said, as he alluded to the PUC Amendment Bill. The Telecommunications Bill is the raison d’être for the PUC Amendment Bill.

“The competition between the blue and the red certainly benefited our people. Each of the cell phone service providers reports 300,000 customers,” he said, in reference to phone companies GT&T and Digicel.

“The step we are taking with that Bill is a big step to change the government monopoly regime to an open private enterprise regime,” Mr. Hinds explained.

The Prime Minister is certainly right as competition benefits the customer with respect to both quality and cost of services.
To its  credit, the government made earlier legal moves to bring an end to the monopoly but was unsuccessful.
Of course this monopoly of the telecommunication sector came about as a result of the privatisation deal between the PNC government, under President Hoyte, and the owners of GT&T which saw the former state-owned entity, the Guyana Telecommunications Corporation (GTC), being sold out at a rock-bottom price.

Also former President Hoyte was made a consultant to the new telephone company. This, perhaps partially, explains the “sweetheart” deal which catered for the company enjoying a 20-year monopoly status.

Ironically, those who are now making a lot of useless noise about corruption and alleged shady deals were quiet then.

However, undoubtedly under GT&T, telecommunications improved significantly but it was at a slow pace and this was expected because of the fact that the company had no competitor.

Global experience has shown the dangers of having monopolies, which have used their enormous clout in national economies not only to manipulate market forces and prices but have been involved in political manipulation.

There are numerous instances in Latin America which verify this. Almost in all Latin American countries,  monopolies have been involved overtly or covertly in removal of governments, in many cases freely elected ones which were replaced by brutal dictatorships.
So most people should be happy that the telecommunications sector will soon be open to competition.
And of course the rival company, Digicel, is more than happy and has indicated its pleasure.

Digicel Guyana said it welcomes the government’s plans to imminently bring an end to what it called the outdated monopoly regime for international calls in Guyana, with the tabling and debating of the Telecommunications Bill and the related Public Utilities Commission Amendment Bill.

Both of these Bills were sent to a Special Select Committee after their second reading on Thursday last.

“As one of the last Caribbean countries without competition in the international calling market, the people of Guyana are forced to suffer sky-high prices for international calls and no choice,” Digicel said in a statement over the weekend.

“In fact, Guyana has one of the highest international calling rates in the Caribbean. Digicel Guyana is therefore calling on the Government of Guyana to ensure that this outdated monopoly on international calls is removed without further delay, as part of the package of telecoms reforms currently before Parliament for early passage into law,” it said.
So we will soon see the upping of the ante between the two rival telecommunication giants and hopefully,
this healthy competition would redound to the benefit of the Guyanese people and the national economy.