TELECOMS giant LIME yesterday accused former Prime Minister Andrew Holness of betraying Jamaican consumers when he reversed a requirement that Digicel maintain both networks as a condition of its proposed merger with Claro.
At the same time, LIME urged the Government to implement an emergency overhaul of the regulations governing the telecoms industry in order to protect consumers and other service providers.
“LIME is calling on the new Government to immediately implement the emergency legislation and overhaul the regulatory framework of the telecoms industry,” the company said in a strongly worded statement. “We are asking the Government to take this action — with extreme alacrity — in the interest of Jamaican consumers as well as all current and any future telecoms service providers.”
LIME’s statement is the latest in a salvo of criticisms levelled at Holness for reversing the condition agreed to by his predecessor Bruce Golding and announced in August last year.
Under that arrangement, Golding said that both networks should be kept going separately until a new legal and regulatory framework could be established.
The merger plan was also approved on condition that the rate Digicel charged LIME for completing calls to Digicel customers would fall by $3.50 per minute and that Digicel gives back some of the radio spectrum that it now holds.
It must also honour its original commitment to provide coverage to 90 per cent of the island, he said.
Golding promised to bring a bill to Parliament “to enable the regulator to discharge its obligations more effectively” within six weeks (by October 11), but announced his resignation before he could complete that task.
Holness said that the bill was tabled in early December.
Last week, when it emerged that Golding’s decision was reversed, Holness explained that the revised deal was not announced immediately because there were details to iron out: “I only got a chance to approve it. It had to go through the phases,” he said.
But his explanation has not found favour with LIME which said it was “extremely disturbed” at the “decision to rescind a critical stipulation in the terms” without concurrently passing the promised legislation to facilitate a meaningful reduction in rates and safeguard the telecoms industry.
“We are equally dismayed at press reports attributed to Digicel, that Claro customers will retain their Claro phone numbers when they are involuntarily transferred by Digicel to their network. This would be a clandestine and privileged introduction of local number portability which appears to have been specially granted only to Digicel. This again gives the dominant player in the market an unfair competitive advantage and denies Claro customers of any real choice in the matter,” LIME said.
“At every opportunity, LIME made clear to the previous Government and the regulators that the proposed merger was bad for competition and therefore bad for Jamaica, if the current inadequate legislative and regulatory environment remained unaddressed. Without those regulatory safeguards, which would include a meaningful reduction in the wholesale and retail interconnection rates charged by the dominant player Digicel, after over a decade since the liberalisation of the telecoms industry, Jamaica faces the dim prospect of the creation of a virtual monopoly in the mobile market,” LIME added.
The company said that this was also a position which the former Government appeared to fully appreciate and pointed to Golding’s labelling as “unimpressive”, Digicel’s offer to adjust its peak and off-peak cross network rates by $3 and $2 respectively.
“In light of this, Mr Golding committed that his administration would be bringing emergency legislation to Parliament within six weeks which we, and indeed the entire nation, would have expected to be used to establish a level playing field, and constrain Digicel from continuing to charge exorbitant and prohibitive rates,” LIME said. “Eighteen weeks later, there is still no legislation, yet the condition that Digicel maintain separate networks has been removed.”
The company argued that Holness’s “removal of this critical condition, without the passing of the emergency legislation to safeguard the industry, has grave implications for the future of Jamaica’s telecommunications industry”.
This move, LIME said, grants Digicel a free ride and “is tantamount to a betrayal of the Jamaican consumers who are desperately seeking relief in this harsh economic climate”.
JA OBSERVER
