THE Telecommunications Act of 2016 is now being enforced, and the Telecommunication Agency established, but Guyanese will have to wait a little longer before the sector is fully liberalised.
On Friday, Minister of State Joseph Harmon announced that Cabinet had granted its approval for the establishment of the Guyana Telecommunications Agency and the commencement of the Telecommunications Act 2016.
The establishment of the agency is the first of two phases that would allow for the full implementation of the Telecommunications Act. “This phase being implemented from October 1 to December 31, 2017 will involve the formation of the agency as a body corporate in accordance with the Act as well as a number of essential administrative and organisational activities which will include staffing of the agency and the finalisation of licensing procedures in preparation for liberation and new licenses to be issued to telecommunication entities,” Minister Harmon explained.
According to the Minister of State, at the end of the first phase the Guyana Telecommunications Agency is expected to be in a position to absorb the functions of the National Frequency Management Unit, and to have capacity to deal with the additional regulatory functions mandated by the Act.

The Public Telecommunication Ministry has been negotiating with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) and Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN) with the aim of ending GTT’s claim to a monopoly over international voice and data transmissions and domestic wireline service. Questioned whether these negotiations have been completed, Minister Harmon said he was not sure.

“I am not sure that the negotiations are complete because there are still some discussions that are being undertaken with the Guyana Revenue Authority. But the Minister of Public Telecommunication has given Cabinet the assurance that her discussions with the affected companies are moving smoothly ahead,” he said. “It is expected that by the time we are ready to bring these things into actuality that we will have some conclusion to all of these matters,” he added.

Minister of Public Telecommunications Catherine Hughes had publicly expressed the hope that the Telecommunications Sector would have been fully liberalized by May 2017.
Telecommunications Legislation was passed in the National Assembly last July following extensive consultations with GTT, Digicel and other stakeholders, including the Private Sector Commission (PSC), the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the University of Guyana (UG) and several non-governmental organisations.
The Telecommunications Bill was first introduced in 2011 but it was revised in 2013 before being sent to a Parliamentary Special Select Committee in the 10th Parliament, and was near conclusion when that Parliament was prorogued in 2014 by the then President, Donald Ramotar.

When it was taken before the National Assembly by the Government, the Opposition, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had called for the bill to be sent to a Special Select Committee for further consideration, but Minister Hughes had argued that the bill had been long promised and was overdue.