TATT: Maha Sabha on air soon

The authority also indicated yesterday that the final mobile phone interconnection rates for TSTT and Irish telecom company Digicel could be decided by the end of this month.

The authority’s acting executive director Cris Seecharan told Newsday yesterday the Maha Sabha’s radio licence is being worked on and there were several procedural matters which needed to be addressed.

Seecharan said it would be premature at this stage to say when the Maha Sabha would receive the radio licence but it was not the authority’s intention to delay issuing it.

On July 4, the Privy Council ruled the Maha Sabha should be granted a radio licence without delay. Attorney-General John Jeremie communicated this to TATT’s chairman Khalid Hassanali on July 4 and asked that “immediate steps” be taken to provide the Maha Sabha with a licence on an appropriate frequency.

Both of the rival factions in the Opposition UNC have condemned Government for denying the Maha Sabha a radio licence. In a July 6 statement, the Ministry of Public Administration and Information said Government has never attempted to deny the Maha Sabha a radio licence or mislead the court.

The ministry said the Maha Sabha made its application in September 2000, the recommendation was made by then Director of Telecommunications Winston Ragbir in December but “was not acted upon by the then government.” When the PNM assumed office in 2001, the telecom portfolio went under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education.

The telecom portfolio was transferred to the Ministry of Public Administration and Information in 2003, following the PNM’s 2002 general elections victory.

The ministry said the Maha Sabha had failed to provide it with the requested information on three separate occasions between October and December 2003 and it could not in good conscience recommend them for grant of a radio licence.

Seecharan also said the arbitration panel formed to determine final interconnection rates between TSTT and Digicel will give its final recommendation at the end of July.

He said while those rates could be challenged by either company or possibly changed, he was hopeful that TSTT and Digicel would abide by the panel’s recommendation. Digicel and local telecom company Laqtel were awarded US$16 and US$ nine million cellular licences respectively in June 2005, ending TSTT’s 26-year monopoly of the local telecom sector.

Interim interconnection rates were agreed upon in March and Digicel formally entered the local telecom market in April.