CHIEF Executive Officer, Gregory Dean said, yesterday, that although Digicel has 95 percent coverage of the country, 2011 has been a mixed year, in terms of the completion of several cellular projects. He told an end-of-year press conference, in his Fort and Barrack Streets, Kingston, Georgetown headquarters that the company continues to contribute towards the development of youths, sports and education and, on many fronts, their work done has been satisfactory.
“We have done what we had planned to do as it regards our network and we were able to complete Matthews Ridge this year, with a number of loop sites also completed in the North West District. So we, pretty much, cover most of the interior locations there,” Dean stated.
He stated that they have cellular sites starting from Charity to Matthews Ridge and they have been aiming to provide coverage for all areas since the inception.
They have also completed Ituni which links to Aroaima and moved on to 58 Miles and other works are in the plan for the mining areas in the future.
Highlighting other works, Dean pointed out that works were also done internally in the system as well as in Berbice, Essequibo and Georgetown. In addition, they are striving to provide even more coverage countrywide.
According to him: “We are doing what we set out to, as, when we first came into the market, our aim was to get as wide a coverage as possible all over Guyana and I think we are pretty much there where we wanted to be, in terms of coverage. We are looking for some areas in the future highlights.”
As regards the development of youth, sports, drama and education, Dean said Digicel was, finally, able to run off the pilot programme for the schools football tournament and now plans to maintain that with athletics. Although there were a few hiccups, they saw a long term interest.
He added that they have also been involved in table tennis, cricket and, generally, in youth level sports, schools drama festival and other education-based events.

Different sports
Dean said: “We believe that, if we can target the youths in terms of future, it would do well for different sports and, for charity, we continue working with Hope Foundation in Bartica and Lifeline Counselling all year round and we are looking at more areas where we can get involved and play a greater role.”
The CEO indicated that they have had a charity drive where more emphasis is being placed on youths and children’s homes were targeted throughout Guyana.
He noted that they are also in talks with other agencies looking at how they can do more in making a lasting contribution to some of those organisations.
Dean said they have also started spreading Christmas cheer and going into communities to deliver goodies and, today, Plastic City will be visited.
About seasonal promotions, he said that the ‘Christmas Credit Rush’ first week winners were presented their prizes and the company has, in store, a promotion on cellular phone sales as well.
Dean said Digicel Guyana is still waiting for the end of the telecommunication monopoly and is quite hopeful that, with the new Parliament members in which all three parties have publicly stated either in their manifestos or otherwise, that they support the opening of a competitive sector.
He declared that, so far, Digicel has seen no reason why there should be any further delays in telecommunication liberalisation.