Business
Bahamas: Telecommunications sector to be liberalized today – PM Christie
Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie has welcomed the liberalization of the telecommunications sector saying “Bahamians would for the first time have competition and competition breeds greater levels of efficiency”.
The liberalization of the sector was one of the campaign promises of then opposition People’s Labor Party (PLP) in 2012, with Christie promising voters that his administration would engage the British telecommunication giant, Cable & Wireless, the lone telecommunications provider on the need to liberalize the sector.
In 2011, amidst public outcry, the Hubert Ingraham administration sold controlling shares of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) to the London-based telecommunication company, for US$210 million.
Christie had promised voters that a PLP government would seek to regain the majority shares and that the party “believes in a share owning democracy” and would sell BTC shares in tranches to Bahamians.
Christie told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) Monday that while the process had taken 2 years to be fulfilled he remains optimistic that the move is the right one given “some real tragic occurrences recently with the breakdown of the system and dropped calls.
“We are in the process of finalizing that and the effective date for liberalization is April 1st.”
Christie said relinquishing the 2 percent shares by Cable & Wireless has been agreed upon in principle and currently the 2 parties are “trying to work through the conditions that are associated with it into a final agreement that should be signed sometime within the next few weeks.”
