Essequibians endure internet and telephone disruptions

Dear Editor,

Since the launching of Guyana Telephone and Telegram (GT&T) 4 G broadband Essequibians have been experiencing constant internet and telephone disruptions. Sometimes it will last for eight hours.

We were expecting the service to improve significantly and that there would be no more problems with our internet and telephone services, but it is getting from bad to worse. The cost for this sloppy service by GTT has been unacceptably high for consumers; we are paying a monthly fee of $5,000 for the internet and a rental for the telephone inclusive of 16 per cent VAT.

On Saturday, March 4, the internet and telephone service went down suddenly about 9 am and it came on back at 6 pm with no improvement.

My understanding from the last budget presented in parliament was that VAT had been reduced from 16 per cent to 14 per cent, so how come this company is charging us the same 16 per cent?

Allow me to turn my attention to the matter of divestment. I for one am against divestment although some people are very aggressively advocating it. Our people must take a dispassionate look at what is going on with these foreign companies when they invest in our country. But here we are speaking of selling off our assets which were built up by generations of enslaved Africans and indentured Indians.

We cannot and must not take this lightly. If we look back when this nation became independent to now, we haven’t made many important strides; we have many barriers to progress. The greatest source of weakness is in the treatment of consumers.

I welcome private, local and foreign investment, but there must be competition with no monopolies.

Yours faithfully, Mohamed Khan