The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie said he will reach out to the president of Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union regarding his “concerns” on Digicel entering the country’s telecommunications market.

BCPOU president Bernard Evans explained Monday the union will oppose the move if there are Bahamian companies that can do the job, and said he personally would not support Digicel because they do not have a union.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said if the government is to admit someone to be a corporate citizen of the Bahamas, they would want to know “that there are no sort of obstacles that one would have to unionisation.”

Speaking outside Cabinet, he confirmed he met with Digicel executives this week. During those meetings, however, the subject of unions was not raised.

“I have really no idea about (Digicel’s) position on unions,” Mr Christie said. “It didn’t come up yesterday and most certainly I will seek to find out from the president of BCPOU what the concerns are because clearly the government of the Bahamas, to admit someone to be a corporate citizen of the Bahamas, would want to know that there are no sort of obstacles that one would have to unionisation.”

It is not a question of whether the union approves or even if the government approves, Mr Christie explained, as the Utilities, Regulation, and Competition Authority (URCA) approved Digicel to provide broadband services back in July.

“URCA is an independent body and the government was faced with the approval of URCA,” he said. “URCA made the decision as long ago as July to approve Digcel for the application it had made to URCA.

“The government of the Bahamas has to make a determination as a Foreign Investment Board but I think the government really is tied to a decision by a body that the government established to independently adjudicate on matters of this kind. So the fact of the matter is that, it is what it is.”

On Monday, Mr Evans said BCPOU does support competition, but would prefer competition to come from a Bahamian company. “I can only go back to our original statement prior to us demonstrating about the sale of BTC to Cable and Wireless. That is, while we always supported competition, we thought that competition could have been well resourced right here between Bahamian companies, not so much that you had to bring in a foreign entity to have competition. And that is still our position.

We are still opposed to foreigners coming in and providing services that can be provided by Bahamians.”