Government’s announcement a week ago that the local company e-Networks had been granted clearance to land its own fibre optic cable in Guyana from neighbouring Brazil has been met with a robust query from another service provider in the IT sector.

Chief Executive Officer of the local company, Brain Street, Lance Hinds, in a comment to Stabroek Business on Tuesday declared that government’s decision to grant e-Networks permission to land its own fibre optic cable here has “raised eyebrows in the technology sector.”

Hinds, who is also President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) said that concerns had also been raised about the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Guyana and the firm Dax Engineering regarding the use of the e-governance cable being installed by government.

As regards the e-Networks cable approval, Hinds told Stabroek Business that local experts were of the view that while the potential of an additional cable augurs well for the growth of ICT in Guyana, “the company selected is cause for concern since it does not currently possess a telecommunications licence.” E-Networks, Hinds continued, is scheduled to become regularized under the new liberalized environment “only when the new telecommunications liberalization legislation is finally passed in Parliament.” Hinds has, for some time now, been one of the more persistent advocates of a hastening of the passage of telecommunications liberalization in Guyana.

Hinds says that in the absence of the company possessing a telecommunications licence, “there is therefore some confusion in terms of criteria for granting permission.”

Meanwhile, Hinds says there are also concerns in the sector over the MOU between the administration and Dax Engineering under which the company will be allocated a number of pairs of fibres in the cable for its own use in exchange for repairs to the still incomplete cable between Brazil and Georgetown. “It is felt that the cable would have been viewed by the commercial telecommunications sector as a public good because it was intended to provide e-government and related services to Guyanese citizens. The question therefore is how does Dax Engineering intend to use its share of the bandwidth? Is it going to be for commercial use?” Hinds queried.