Dear Editor,
I cannot recall how or why GT&T introduced the dish phones for a few houses, but they supplied a few villages with the phone such as La Grange, Zeelugt and even some in Leguan. These phones work with AC current and during the blackouts they work for a period of time until the back-up battery dies. Over time, they started to develop problems and for consumers it was a nightmare to get the technicians to come and fix them. In addition, when they did, the battery had to be replaced or the dish. In order to get speedy service, some paid a bribe to the technicians. Because of the importance of having a telephone in a house, the consumers would pay whoever they could to get their phone working.
Landlines are much sought after by residents in Guyana; some picket, write letters to the editor and get interviewed by the news media just to get one, but for some reason, GT&T just seems hell bent on having Guyanese beg for one of the basic necessities of life. They control the monopoly and quite frankly, since the Chinese company got the government’s 20% shares, I haven’t seen any expansion. In other words, GT&T are part of the mechanism that is keeping progress back in Guyana.
Editor, I am not certain how many of the dish phones are still working, but all in Zeelugt stopped working in November. Some residents tried contacting GT&T, but they eventually got tired and stopped after they were unsuccessful. Those who got through were informed that GT&T will be upgrading the area to a landline one soon because the dish phone has too many problems, and they should bear up. It is almost one year now and most of the consumers are anxiously waiting for their landline, whilst some have given up hope. Editor, sometimes the dish phones would be inoperable for over one month and the consumer would still have to pay the monthly charge of $500, and they pay instead of arguing and losing the service.
My main point is that GT&T is fully aware that they shut down the dish phone service but they are still sending consumers monthly bills of $500. I cannot say if all of them have refused to pay, but in the case of some of the bills I have seen, the $500 is added to the next bill so the consumer would shortly have a bill of over $4,000 for GT&T. If you are going for a service from GT&T and you owe them on a bill, you have to clear all arrears before you get the service. Now these residents are not getting any service from these useless instruments so why is GT&T still wasting money by printing the bills and paying for postage to send these bills to people’s houses? Will they require them to pay those bills?
Yours faithfully,
Sahadeo Bates
