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[cablewithaview]

The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) has estimated damage to its communication cable network resulting from excavation accidents and copper theft since 1999 at more than $130m. And according to official information released by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) most of the agencies responsible for the accident-related cable damage are yet to honour bills sent to them by the Company.

A document made available to the Stabroek Business by GT&T lists the Guyana Water Authority (GUYWA), the Guyana Power and Light Company(GPL) and the Georgetown Mayor and City Council as owing among the largest amounts for cable damage. Among private contractors the Trinidad and Tobago road construction firm Seereeram Bros. has the largest outstanding amount. A Regional Democratic Council (RDC) and several Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) also owe the Company more modest amounts for cable damage.

According to the GT&T document GUYWA was responsible for twelve instances of damaged telephone cable between 2000 and 2003 while Guyana Water Inc. was responsible for one instance of cable damage earlier this year. The cost of the cable damage, in the case of GUYWA has been put at $28,657,829.00 but only $1,505,655,00 has been paid. GPL, according to the GT&T document, has been billed for amounts totalling $4,204,743.00 but has only paid $276,475.00. The document states that damage to cable by GPL dates back to 2001. The Georgetown Mayor and City Council,, according to the document, has been responsible for cable damage dating back to to 2002 and has failed to settle any part of the $3,558,726.00 owing to GT&T. The document also claims that the National Drainage and Irrigation Board was responsible for three instances of cable damage last year but has so far not settled any part of the $1,603,536.00 bill forwarded to the agency by GT&T.

Among private companies the document lists Seereeram Bros. as owing $8.961,030.00 of which only $755,564,00 has been paid. Incidents of cable damage by that Company, according to the GT&T document date back to 2003. The GT&T tally of outstanding amounts owed to the company for cable damage also lists Gafoor & Sons Hardware Store as owing $$8,285, 136 for cable damage that occurred in 2004 and Dwane Wilson, a private contractor who was reportedly responsible for cable damage totalling $5,475,530.00 arising out of a single incident in 2004. According to the GT&T records no payment has been made to the company in either instance.

Other companies listed as owing GT&T amounts in excess of $1m for cable damage are Falcon Transport, and A. Parbudial & Sons Construction. According to GT&T neither company has made restitution. Several other companies are listed as owing GT&T amounts below $1m for cable damage.

Several local authorities are also listed among agencies that have been responsible for damage to GT&T cables and are yet to reimburse the company for the damage. The Regional Democratic Council, Region 5 is listed as owing the company $1,428,953,00 for cable damage which reportedly occurred earlier this year while the LBI/Better Hope, Hogstye and Blairmont Neighbourhood Democratic Councils are listed as owing smaller amounts.

GT&T Chief Executive Officer Major General (retd) Joe Singh told Stabroek Business that much of the cable damage had resulted from negligence on the part of contractors. "We have a policy of call before you dig but very often contractors simply turn up at sites and begin to excavate and unfortunately there are cases in which they simply dig up fibre optic cables," Singh said.

GT&T's Deputy General Manager, Public Communications, Terry Holder told Stabroek Business that he had met with Local Government Minister Harry Persaud Nokta and that he had also attended a meeting with the Minister and all Regional Executive Officers at which an undertaking was given that contractors would be apprised of the need to notify the company before they commenced digging. Holder explained that while the company was receiving the cooperation of the regional system there had been instances in which smaller sub-contractors had not observed the call-before-you-dig arrangement. Holder said that the process of protecting the company's cables necessitated a higher level of public consciousness. "We would like to move to a system that sees members of the public intervening with contractors to ask them whether they were aware of the presence of telephone cables and whether or not they had checked with GT&T before digging."

Meanwhile GT&T has also disclosed that cable damage by "persons unknown" during 2005 and 2006 cost the company $11,879,137.00 in repairs. The term "persons unknown" is a euphemism used by the company to describe acts of vandalism that target the copper inside telecommunication cable casings.

Singh told Stabroek Business that the telephone cable vandalism was linked to the ready market for copper in Guyana. GT&T cables contain 22 and 26 gauge wire and according to Singh one pound of 22 gauge wire costs US$511.00. "In effect the high price of copper makes the stealing of telephone cable a very attractive proposition, particularly for unemployed persons," Singh said.

"We have hundreds of miles of wire and policing is impossible. We have done all that we believe is humanly possible by notifying the public, including businesses, that they have an interest in protecting these assets since it is they who suffer the consequences of vandalism," Singh said.

Early last week copper thieves pulled down two telephone poles on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway in the vicinity of Splashmin's Fun Park disrupting telecommunication services at Linden, Ituni and Kwakwani. Singh said that the thieves had initially attempted to pull down the poles by excavating the areas around them. This approach having failed they cut the "stay" wires holding the poles in place and succeeded in bringing them down.

He said that having commenced scraping the outer sheath of the cable the thieves discovered that it was fibre optic cable and not copper cable at which point they simply abandoned the exercise and fled.

During 2004 GT&T responded to 61 reports of cable damage while last year the number of reports decreased to 47. Up to August 2006 there were 55 reports of cable damage.

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