Liberalization of Telecoms to Bring New Employment Opportunities

Contact: John Emmanuel

Wednesday, February 28, 2001 -- The pending liberalization of the telecommunications market in St. Lucia and the wider Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) sub-region will open up significant new employment opportunities, according to Public Utilities Minister Senator Calixte George.

In St. Lucia’s case, the first set of opportunities will come with the liberalization of Customer Premises Equipment as of April 1, 2001. According to Senator George, as part of the new liberalized environment, employees of Cable and Wireless with the necessary expertise will be able to bid for contracts to undertake such services.

"This means that one can go into the area of wiring internally and purchasing his or her own phones and would not have to pay any kind of rental fees to Cable and Wireless. There is also the question of multi-line aspects such as PBX’s and the like," explained the minister.

He added: "What this does is that it allows a lot of the good and skilled people within Cable and Wireless an opportunity to form their own businesses, individual small companies in dealing with that aspect of the industry, rather than Cable and Wireless continuing to do that."

A follow up meeting between OECS representatives and Cable and Wireless will take place this week in Grenada, where a time frame will hopefully be agreed upon to finalize some of the legal issues surrounding the liberalization process.

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Search for 2001 Press Releases ] [Site Help]

© 2001 Government Information Service. All rights reserved.

Read our privacy guidelines.