The money from the sale of government’s 20 percent stake in the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) Company will be utilized to develop the information communication technology (ICT) sector, says President Bharrat Jagdeo.

He made this disclosure at a press conference on Tuesday at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri prior to leaving for New York. And the Government Information Agency (GINA) in a release quoted Jagdeo as saying, “We hope that the money that we can realize from this sale can go back to developing the ICT sector; that we can get more people access (to the internet)…we are trying to get more computers (and)…bring down the cost of bandwidth.”

According to GINA, he said further that government has been a passive shareholder of GT&T, accepting dividends and permitting the majority shareholder, Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN), to take decisions that are in their interest.  And while government remains committed to a liberalized telecommunications sector, this does not mean that the administration  has to do the investments itself, the president noted.

Government will move to increase internet penetration within Guyana by subsidizing the cost of internet bandwidth.

Jagdeo was also quoted as saying, “If we can subsidize bandwidth to get more people connected to the internet…we’re hoping that over time we could have some 80,000 households connected to the internet.”

On January 1, 2006, the president had declared, “ICT offers tremendous promise. With liberalization of the telecoms sector, ICT can make a significant contribution in improving communications, providing new and improved goods and services as well as creating thousands of jobs for our young people. I would like to see telephones, computers and broadband access in every school and household in our country.”