The government yesterday sent the two pieces of legislation aimed at liberalizing the country’s telecommunications sector to a special select committee, and pledged that when the bills are passed and implemented, they will lead to GT&T’s monopoly on international calls being immediately broken.
In the absence of the Opposition members who are protesting the extension of the current session of Parliament, Prime Minister Sam Hinds, following the second reading of the bills in the National Assembly, requested that both the Telecommunications Bill 2011 and the Public Utilities Commission (Amendment) bill be sent to a Special Select Committee. Hinds explained that the government has invited the major stakeholders to make submissions on the bills by August 17 after which the bills will return to the House by early September.
“We believe that as both GT&T and Digicel have thrived with an open competitive mobile cellular system all the participants in an
