-minutes to be sold, VAT collected
The controversy over the regulation and operations of local Internet Cafes may be nearing an end, according to information received by Stabroek Business earlier this week from a senior GT&T official.
GT&T Marketing Director Wystan Robertson told Stabroek Business on Monday that the company is currently “testing” a new system under which Internet Cafes would effectively be ‘buying minutes’ from GT&T through authorized vendors across the country to operate their international dialling and internet services.
“GT&T has met with Internet Users Group and with some of the larger users within that group. We are currently testing with some of them and we are hoping that we will be able to roll out the service within the next week or two.”
And Robertson told Stabroek Business that it was his impression that Internet Café owners were “generally accepting” of the new arrangement. “Apart from the fact that people do not want to run afoul of the law I think that the Internet Cafes, like us, recognize that they have a responsibility to the country and to the industry,” Robertson said. He noted that the new service which will be accessible to the hundreds of Internet Cafes across the country was ‘imminent”.
According to Robertson the recent focus on the operations of Internet Cafes arose out of a meeting between President Bharrat Jagdeo and GT&T Chief Executive Officer, Joe Singh during which both the issue of the protection of GT&T’s licence and the loss of revenue, both to the public treasury and to the company, were discussed. Robertson said that GT&T had made numerous complaints to the various local regulatory bodies over the transgressions which he said have been going on “perhaps for the past eight or nine years.”Apart from the issues of legality and revenue Robertson said that there were “security implications” associated with the use of the VOIP service.
Robertson said that another implication of the continued operation of the Internet Café service in its present manner had to do with quality of service. “When someone in the USA is trying without success to get through to Guyana it is not because GT&T or any of its international partners are providing a bad service. Unfortunately for that caller his traffic is coming in to Guyana through a bypass route. Robertson said that there was nothing that the company could do about the quality of what he described as “grey traffic.”
Robertson said that the controversy over the modus operandi of the Internet Cafes had also been attended by enquiries by the Guyana Revenue Authority into issues concerning their tax liabilities. And that GT&T has taken a decision to use the technology to introduce a service to Internet Café owners which enables them to capture the requisite taxes including VAT and pass these on to the government as well as to provide the Cafes with a level of service that is above what they have at this time.”
