The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known businessman yesterday called for “severe consequences” if the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) failed to meet its mandated 36-69 per cent efficiency improvement targets, arguing that its troubled cellular upgrade showed privately-run monopolies were “much worse” than their government counterparts.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, Superwash’s president, told Tribune Business that private monopolies such as BTC’s cellular (mobile) business needed to be “tightly controlled” by regulators with enforcement 
“teeth”, suggesting the newly-privatised carrier should be fined $1 million per month until it reached the efficiency improvements set by the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA).

Adding that BTC had embarked on a public relations offensive to “distract” Bahamians from the poor service resulting from the cellular upgrade, and in the wake of the Government’s announced intention to reclaim the 51 per cent majority shareholding, Mr D’Aguilar nevertheless backed the carrier’s privatisation.

Describing it as “a major, major mistake” for the Christie administration to try and renegotiate the agreement with Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), the former Chamber of Commerce president said it had taken 10 years to privatise BTC, and urged: “My God, leave it alone.”

Still, Mr D’Aguilar described as “mind boggling” recent comments by BTC chief executive, Geoff Houston, that the Government was set to double the returns from its 49 per cent equity stake over the next 12 months - via a forecast $20 million dividend.

Arguing that BTC’s continued - and increased - profitability showed the 4G network upgrade could have been handled differently, Mr D’Aguilar said: “BTC is clearly on a public relations campaign right now to distract people from the fact that things are pretty dreadful.

“The quality of the cell phone service is pretty sub-standard, and I still can’t understand why they needed to collapse the previous system to upgrade to the new system.

“I can’t help but believe that if they were not in a monopolistic environment, they wouldn’t have done this.”

Had CWC and its Caribbean affiliate, LIME, attempted something similar in a competitive market such as New York or London, Mr D’Aguilar said their customers would have defected in droves to rival operators, thus preventing them from doing this.

Recalling LIME chief executive, David Shaw’s, pledge at a Bahamas Business Outlook conference that the company would do everything it could to avoid upsetting BTC customers within the first 12-18 months, the Superwash president said the problems plaguing the cellular network showed it had failed.

“What irks me and upsets other people is that we can’t do a damn thing about it, except suck it up,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business.

“We’re still paying the same fees we’ve always paid and are getting worse service, with the hope things get better. We were sold a dream - a dream that the 4G network would be installed by July, and now it’s been extended to September.

“This network has gone from second world to third world, in the hope that one day it will become a first world network.”

Pointing to the all too-frequent dropped and missed cellular calls, failure to get through at peak times and system overloads, Mr D’Aguilar called for “consequences that hurt” if private companies with monopolies - such as BTC - failed to meet certain targets such as those set by URCA.

“Why I was so attracted to the privatisation of BTC was that they could become a lot more efficient and therefore reduce the price and improve the service,” he told Tribune Business. “All the political meddling would cease, and they could get on with running the business.

“What is clear to me is that unregulated private monopolies are much worse than government-owned monopolies. The privately-run monopoly is totally motivated by profit, but the Government-run ,monopoly is motivated by re-election, so at least they try and do good things for the voters.

“I have no problem with a private monopoly, but it needs to be tightly controlled. BTC should remain in private hands, but the oversight given greater teeth to ensure they deliver on what they say they are going to deliver.”

Adding that he was “emphatically” against the Christie administration’s policy of seeking to regain a majority shareholding at BTC, Mr D’Aguilar said it should also have proceeded with the Ingraham government’s plans to sell 9 per cent of its shares to the Bahamian public via a $37 million initial public offering (IPO).

“I think it’s a mistake for the Government to buy back 2 per cent; a major, major mistake,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business. “I agree with privatisation, and don’t think we should go back from that.

“It took us 10 years to get where we are today. My God, leave it alone. We talked about privatising BTC for 10 years, and now they want to resurrect government control?”