Special Fund for telecoms services to unprofitable areas

Last Updated on Friday, 12 February 2021, 16:35 by Denis Chabrol

Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh on Friday announced that a Universality Fund will be established to facilitate telecommunication services to poor and hinterland communities.

Delivering the 2021 National Budget, he said monies from telecommunication providers would see the injection of GYD$360 million dollars to the fund.

The Universality Fund is catered for in the telecoms liberalisation process to ensure areas where commercial operators do not consider profitable are served.

He said feasible projects would be identified to be  implemented by the private sector to boost services in unserved and underserved areas.

Meanwhile, he said GYD$67 million has been set aside for the rehabilitation of the Linden Call Centre. That, he said, would be part of a plan to generate 450 jobs by call  centres in Linden, Tuschen and Enmore, “partly due to the decreased cost of Internet service.”

The telecoms sector was fully liberalised within recent months, ending a decades-old monopoly by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph on international voice and data.