GUYANA: Government and Utility Company at Odds

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, Sep 5 1996 (IPS) - When the privately-run Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company applied for higher service rates almost five years ago, a government-appointed utilities commission rejected the bid, saying the company’s coffers were overflowing with cash, mainly from an international telephone sex facility routed through the country.

In rejecting the bid for some 186 percent increase, the commission called the company’s increased rate demands absurd and urged it to get on with an agreed expansion and modernisation programme of the country’s telephone service.

Now the two have reached a stalemate over the slow pace of the expansion programme and how to treat revenue from the 1-900 phone service.

The company says earnings from this service are drying up as a crusade against immorality in the society gets into full swing. With profits declining it is not feasible to embark on any expansion drive, company officials say.

The company, 80 percent owned by the U.S. Virgin Islands-based Atlantic Tele Network (ATN) admits it earns up to 75 percent of the annual revenues from the “dial-a-porn” service, with calls from the United States and other countries routed through Guyana using the country’s 592 country code. ATN acquired the state-owned company in 1991.

There are other considerations. With general elections just about 13 months away, the Cheddi Jagan administration has been stepping up its demands on the company to get telephones into the homes of residents.

Just one in 14 Guyanese in the capital has the use of the service in their homes, while in the interior there are no telephones.

The government had asked the company to put in some 20,000 new telephone lines under the expansion programme as well as modern facilities such as call waiting and conferencing.

At least three senior cabinet ministers have in the last month attacked the company, saying it is showing little respect for the needs of the Guyanese people.

But the ruling People’s Progressive Party is blaming this situation on the previous government which gave the firm a 20-year monopoly on telephone service in 1991, almost a year before the present administration took office.

But with no desire for this incident to burn a hole in its popularity, the government is trying to find ways of getting around this rather undesirable situation.

One approach being explored is to hand out operating licences to a number of firms to start up a cellular service although the cost may be prohibitive for many residents, with an approximate charge of 50 cents per minute (75 Guyanese dollars).

And despite the delay in expansion plans, secretary, Godfrey Statia, maintains that at present the company is financially healthy, although the situation remains fragile.

“It is a fly by night thing and could go anytime. We have already lost Germany and most of the UK and only the U.S. and a few others remain. Banks are lending us money based on the sex calls revenue. It is not permanent,” he says “Without the audio text service, we would collapse and that’s what we have been telling the commission.”

In 1992 the Guyanese government threw out a sex call company, Islands Telephone Company, after several young women complained that they answered advertisements for jobs as telephone operators, but were expected to talk ‘dirty’ to overseas male callers.