ATN Promises Better Telephone Service
TOP level management personnel will be brought in by the Atlantic Tele Network (ATN) to run the operations of the joint venture company being formed between the Guyana Telecomunications Corporation (GTC) and ATN. Mr. Jeffrey Prosser Chairman of the Board of ATN speaking at a press conference Monday said that at the outset he envisaged key management people being brought in to run the operations of ATN-Guyana.
He however said that ATN did not plan to do this in the long term as in its Virgin Islands operations, bringing in personnel from the United States has proven to be costly and unattractive.
ATN, he said, would encourage Guyanese with the requisite skills living abroad to return home and assume positions in the local telecommunications company especially those who may now be attached to companies such as Northern Telecom and Bell Canada.
ATN he said will retain all existing employees and implement a rigorous 18month training programme “to ensure that they can be fully integrated into the positions needed in the construction and expansion of facilities.”
Mr. Prosser did not give any assurance on the fate of GTC employees after 18 months but said that the same fears existed in the Virgin Islands when ATN bought the local telecommunications company. At the time the company had 430 employees it now has over 500 and any termination of employment has been due to poor performance.
Mr. Prosser said that there was general misconception that the computerisation of the local telecommunications system would result in many positions at the GTC becoming redundant.
He said he did not see such a decrease especially with ATN’s plans to reach the many outlying areas of the country.
Asked about the time frame that ATN considered would see rapid improvements in the current beleaguered system, Mr. Prosser said that as long as negotiations were complete and an agreement signed, within three months subscribers should benefit from a significantly improved system.
He outlined some of the areas of telecommunications that ATN intended to concentrate on. These are improvements in call completion, reliability of services and the connecting of 20,000 new subscribers.
Mr. Prosser offered the example of ATN’s VITELCO company in the Virgin Islands where subscribers on application can get a phone in three days or have a fault repaired in 24 hours. ATN will also provide telephone service to the interior and install public pay stations for local and international calls.
Mr. Prosser said that ATN will spend more than US$80m on Guyana’s telecommunications system over the next five years. He however declined to comment on the purchase price being negotiated and the size of GTC’s debt that ATN would assume liability for, taking his cue on responding to this and some other questions from Guyanese Mr. Ron Saunders, a consultant to ATN.
Mr. Prosser said ATN was committed to freezing current subscriber rates for three years but this was incumbent upon three factors the most relevant of which is a change affecting the official exchange rate of the local currency compared to the US$. However, he said that a further devaluation of the local currency will not necessarily mean an increase in subscriber rates.
Mr. Prosser was questioned as to whether an independent board would be established to assess whether rates should be increased. He said that this is the way it was done in the Virgin Islands and as long as there was no problem with such a board being created ATN would not be opposed to it.
Mr. Prosser disclosed that the existing agreement between the GTC and Northern Telecoms for the supply of advanced communications equipment will be honoured.
Under the proposed agreement, ATN will acquire 80 per cent of GTC’s assets.