The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie yesterday said that the government will not own 51 per cent of the country’s second mobile services provider as previously reported. He said the shares would instead be owned by “Bahamian investors”.

He said management control of the new company will likely rest in the hands of the new “strategic partner”.

Mr Christie also said he was “surprised” that there were no bids from Bahamian entities to potentially become the country’s first alternative in the mobile services arena.

On Wednesday, during his mid-year budget communication in the House of Assembly, the prime minister said 51 per cent of the company chosen as the second mobile services provider will be “owned by the Bahamian people.”

However, according to published reports, Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis later said the government would be the majority shareholder in the new company, whose shares would eventually be sold off to local investors.

But yesterday, Mr Christie said that the government has “insisted” that the Cellular Liberalisation Task Force, formed last April, put in place the “wherewithal for Bahamians, Bahamian investors to own 51 per cent.”

“The government will retain its ownership of (The Bahamas Telecommunications Company) for the time being, and the government will spearhead the liberalisation process where we say a real special effort was made to place Bahamians who are owners in the pension funds of the country to have those funds invest towards making up the 51 per cent,” he said on the sidelines of the renaming of the Spanish Wells All Age School to the Samuel Guy Pinder All Age School.

“Clearly what we’re saying is the foreign partner will be a foreign strategic partner with the management of the company probably in all probability. That is it, but not for the government to own the shares, but people through their pension funds and through other areas of investment. We have the task force with Price Waterhouse Coopers who will be superintending that process.

“After they have judged and given points to the applicants, it will go to (the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority) who will supervise an auction. Then when you add the two together, in May I hope I will be able to announce the entry in the marketplace of a competitor to BTC in terms of cellular services.”

On Wednesday the government announced that three companies – Cable Bahamas, Virgin Mobile Bahamas and Digicel Bahamas – had submitted proposals to obtain the country’s second mobile provider license.

Regarding his “surprise” on there not being a proposal from a Bahamian entity, Mr Christie said: “I was surprised, because they had a joint venture, a Bahamian and English company, but they have decided to not go further in this. The company Cable Bahamas we know exists here with infrastructure in the Bahamas. Digicel is a mammoth company around the world and big in the Caribbean, so therefore we expected Digicel to come in.

“We expected from earlier indications that Virgin, which is a British company, would come in. We are told there may be alliances between Virgin and a Bahamian group. That is what we have to see. But the government of the Bahamas is really only a bystander in this process.”

On Wednesday, which marked the deadline for companies to respond to the government’s request for proposals (RFP) process, Mr Christie said the task force had drafted transaction documents to govern a partnership with the government that would allow for a 49 per cent, 51 per cent ownership split.

Mr Christie said on Wednesday that the government has a requirement for the new cellular company to have “broad Bahamian ownership”.

BTC’s monopoly on mobile services ended last May.

On November 13, 2014 the government invited interested persons to apply to operate a second cellular network.

The government said yesterday that nine companies, both local and international, had registered for an RFP package.