St. Lucia To Host ECTEL Meeting

Contact: John Emmanuel

Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - As ministers with responsibility for Telecommunications in the OECS prepare for the inaugural meeting of the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL) here on Wednesday, Communications, Works, Transport and Public Utilities Minister Senator Calixte George says the region stands firm in its resolve, to regulate and liberalize the telecommunications sector so as to realize the greatest benefits.

Minister George believes that the liberalization and reform process will lead to more affordable, modern, efficient and competitive communication services to regional people. He says ECTEL is convinced that such a liberalized and competitive environment is critical to the future economic and social development of the region.

However the minister is of the view that telecommunication giant Cable and Wireless continues to ‘play for time’ in relation to liberalizing the telecommunications environment.

According to him, "We have over the past year or so been asking for basic information. Cable and Wireless gives you bits and pieces of information. Some times you get information on cost of a particular thing but not enough information on the volume of traffic, so you really can’t get a true picture of what is going on. There are a lot of things that they are hiding away from us. I have always indicated that the whole question of asymmetry in terms of a knowledge base has to be brought more in line with a symmetrical position, whereby both parties have equal information so that one can have a beneficial exchange in terms of arriving on consensus on certain matters."

Minister George says although there has been a distinct movement on the part of Cable and Wireless in cooperating by providing some cost data and making basic improvements, the company still has a long way to go. He says the idea is not to eradicate the telecommunications giant from the region, but to give the region’s people a fair deal on telecommunications services.

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