CAS­TRIES–The Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) has launched an ini­tia­tive aimed at mo­bil­is­ing and sen­si­tis­ing the pub­lic of the sub-re­gion to the re­cent moves by Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (CWC) to ac­quire Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al.

CWC is re­port­ed­ly pay­ing US$3 bil­lion to ac­quire the pri­vate­ly owned Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al, a fi­bre-based tele­coms com­pa­ny serv­ing the Caribbean, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and An­dean re­gion, which is backed by ca­ble tele­vi­sion bil­lion­aire John Mal­one.Head of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the St Lu­cia-based OECS Com­mis­sion, Am­bas­sador An­tho­ny Sev­erin, said de­vel­op­ments sur­round­ing the takeover "have pro­found im­pli­ca­tions for the progress of an ICT sec­tor and economies of our mem­ber states."

Sev­erin, who is act­ing as head as of­fi­cer in charge of the Com­mis­sion in the ab­sence of Dr Di­da­cus Jules, the di­rec­tor gen­er­al, said se­ri­ous con­cerns have been ex­pressed about this mat­ter by a num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als and in­sti­tu­tions around the re­gion.

"The OECS Com­mis­sion is of the view that these con­cerns are very re­al and that there is need for the con­tin­ued ven­ti­la­tion of these con­cerns," he said, adding, "while there has been some pub­lic de­bate on the mat­ter, we are of the view at the Com­mis­sion that this de­bate is tak­ing place at a lev­el and in a man­ner which does not even be­gin to ad­dress the re­al is­sues."

Savarin said the "cur­rent pub­lic de­bate is based on a menu that is pre­pared with­in the board­rooms and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fices of the var­i­ous pro­tag­o­nists whose in­ter­est is to main­tain the de­bate at a lev­el of pub­lic ac­cu­sa­tion by each oth­er of mal­prac­tices and var­i­ous un­der­hand deal­ings.

"We be­lieve there is need for greater sen­si­ti­sa­tion of our var­i­ous pub­lic and stake­hold­ers about the re­al is­sues at play in or­der that there can be much greater and more in­formed pub­lic dis­course and that pub­lic pol­i­cy when for­mu­lat­ed could be more re­flec­tive of and re­spon­sive to the ar­tic­u­lat­ed con­cerns of our var­i­ous publics and stake­hold­ers."Sev­erin said that the in­tent of the OECS Com­mis­sion is to con­tribute to the pub­lic dis­course "and to seek to raise the lev­el of that dis­course"

He said the Com­mis­sion was re­leas­ing two doc­u­ments penned by Jules or pub­lic in­for­ma­tion. Sev­erin said he was al­so chal­leng­ing the me­dia in the sub-re­gion to be ac­tive fa­cil­i­ta­tors of the pub­lic dis­course as well as be­ing "ac­tive con­trib­u­tors in a sub­stan­tive way to that dis­course."We do not in­tend to stop there how­ev­er as we will be ut­lis­ing to the fullest the var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms in fur­ther­ance of this ef­fort," he said.

The OECS groups the is­lands of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, St Kitts-Nevis, Montser­rat, British Vir­gin is­lands and An­guil­la.The St Lu­cia-based East­ern Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Reg­u­la­to­ry Au­thor­i­ty (Ectel) has al­ready said the pro­posed agree­ment is a mat­ter of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est for the re­gion de­serv­ing of rig­or­ous reg­u­la­to­ry at­ten­tion and dili­gent re­view.

Ectel has ex­pressed its "deep con­cern" in re­la­tion to the pro­posed trans­ac­tion and the fact that the pro­posed merg­er could "po­ten­tial­ly re­sult in a neg­a­tive im­pact on com­pe­ti­tion' by "re­duc­ing choice for con­sumers of both ser­vices and ser­vice providers."

Ectel fur­ther not­ed that "in­creased mo­nop­o­li­sa­tion can erode the gains made by lib­er­al­i­sa­tion" and that the pro­posed merg­er rais­es sig­nif­i­cant is­sues in terms of po­ten­tial breach­es of li­cences by both CWC and Colum­bus which must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed thor­ough­ly.

But CWC chief ex­ec­u­tive, Phil Bent­ley, has giv­en a com­mit­ment to Caribbean gov­ern­ments and reg­u­la­tors that if the com­pa­ny's ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al is ap­proved, the en­larged CWC will not neg­a­tive­ly im­pact com­pe­ti­tion in the ca­ble and broad­band mar­kets.