The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Prior to today’s announcement by the Prime Minister, Cable and Wireless (C&W) was the majority owner of BTC and the Government was the minority owner. The majority ownership by C&W in BTC remains unaffected by today’s announcement. Despite the Prime Minister’s promise to reacquire the majority interest in BTC the shareholding of the Government in BTC still remains 49 per cent.

This is true despite the positive spin the prime minister placed on a rather useless and fruitless 20-month period of negotiations between the Government and C&W.

Certainly, it was naive at best for the Prime Minister and his Government to believe that C&W would ever seriously consider acquiescing to the government’s demand that it become the majority owner of BTC. Consider the position of the C&W: The Government of The Bahamas has treated them with contempt as majority owners of BTC. Imagine what they would expect if they were to become minority owners?!

What Perry Christie and his merry band of advisors need to explain to the Bahamian people is why it did not occur to them to encourage C&W to simply accelerate plans to dilute their ownership by selling shares directly to the Bahamian people.

The agreement struck by the FNM Government with C&W provided for the Government to sell 9 per cent of its 49 per cent ownership to the Bahamian public at the same price per share paid by C&W before the end of 2012.

It was clearly understood that there would be a second tranche of shares to be sold to the Bahamian public before March 2014. This second pool of shares was to be sold at market price. The FNM Government expected shares in BTC would be listed on The Bahamas Stock Exchange. Both Government and C&W owned shares would be offered for sale reducing the percentage of ownership by both. C&W would have maintained its majority shareholding and management control of the Board. The Government would have preserved two seats on the Board of BTC.

Now, following 20 months of wasting the people’s time and money on trying to renegotiate an agreement that cannot be altered, the prime minister announced that he has fulfilled his election campaign promise. The announced farce does not keep the promise and it does not change the status quo. The new announced deal is a figment of the Prime Minister’s imagination and the latest instalment of smoke and mirror governance being visited upon our country. In essence this is one big charade.

The sale of the majority ownership in BTC to C&W is irreversible just as the liberalisation of the communications market is irreversible. Today we have no monopoly over the provision of land-line telephone service. We have competition among internet providers. We have multiple radio broadcast stations and more than one television stations. These matters, like the majority private ownership of BTC are, in former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham’s words “irreversible”. No amount of talk by the Government will reverse all of this progress.

We must hope that the Government has not tampered with deadlines set for the introduction of a second cellular phone service provider. As is, this last vestige of monopoly in the communications sector will come to an end within the next 12 to 18 months.

If there is a disappointment by Bahamians in C&W ownership and management of BTC, it has been in the level of service offered by the company.

C&W has spent its time in The Bahamas rapidly introducing new products and gadgets, much to the excitement of young people and “techies”. The rest of us have not been so happy with the number of dropped calls. Let’s hope that now that the Government’s misguided efforts to renegotiate a done deal have come to an end, C&W will be able to better concentrate its efforts on improving service levels.

In the meantime, BTC remains an irreversible privatised enterprise and is fully controlled by C&W.

KIRKLAND TURNER

Nassau

23 January, 2014