Business
LIME Jamaica: We are not shutting down operations
(Jamaica Observer) – LIME Jamaica yesterday strongly denied a news report that British parent company Cable & Wireless (C&W) PLC., has decided it will shut down its local operation in light of a ‘difficult’ regulatory environment.
“I categorically deny that,” LIME Jamaica Chairman Chris Dehring told Nationwide Radio just minutes after the news station reported that C&W PLC., last year informed a former Jamaican Prime Minister that it will pull out of the country if there was no ‘improvement’ in the regulatory environment, and that the merger of Digicel and Claro only accelerated that decision made in London.
“Certainly, as the chairman here at LIME Jamaica, no such decision, to our knowledge, has been reached and we continue to operate,” Dehring said.
While dismissing the reports, however, the LIME chairman acknowledged that the company believes that the current regulatory environment is making it very difficult for the company to operate a viable business.
“We are certainly not shutting down, there’s no intention to shut down, but obviously people are going to have to take a cold hard look sometimes at the economics of it,” Dehring said. “It’s an environment which does not help us and therefore any shareholder will say, ‘listen, we need to invest our funds where we can make a decent return’. We would love to invest more into this country, but we have to know that the playing field is level.”
LIME Jamaica Managing Director Garry Sinclair later issued a statement further dismissing the Nationwide report and seeking to assure the public that LIME is “100 percent committed to Jamaica”.
“We would like to assure our employees, our loyal customers, our shareholders, our suppliers and the wider public that we remain committed to serving them. It is, therefore, imperative that we are not distracted from the real issues plaguing the country’s telecoms sector,” Sinclair said.
