The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers' Union (CWU) yes­ter­day ex­pressed "deep re­gret and con­cern" at the de­ci­sion of the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment to ap­prove the ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al Inc by Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (CWC).

In a state­ment signed by sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joseph Re­my, the union said it was dis­con­cert­ing that Ja­maica's Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, En­er­gy and Min­ing Min­is­ter Phillip Paulwell felt lit­tle could be done to block the im­pend­ing merg­er.

The CWU fur­ther not­ed ap­proval was giv­en de­spite the po­si­tion adopt­ed by the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (CTU), at a meet­ing in T&T late last year, to seek a re­gion­al re­sponse on the mat­ter.

The union re­newed its call to the T&T Gov­ern­ment and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) to "take the lead in this sit­u­a­tion and re­ject any ap­proval for the trans­fer of con­trol of Flow to Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions." The CWU, which re­cent­ly sub­mit­ted a po­si­tion pa­per on the im­pend­ing ac­qui­si­tion to the CWU is call­ing for mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions with TATT be­fore any de­ci­sion is tak­en.

"We are al­so call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to stay their hand on any de­ci­sion in this mat­ter and strong ad­vise that they do not fol­low the ill con­ceived and un­for­tu­nate po­si­tion adopt­ed by the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment," the union said.

Ap­proval of the deal is still await­ing reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval from T&T and Bar­ba­dos, as well as US an­ti-trust au­thor­i­ties and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions reg­u­la­tors.

Last No­vem­ber, Colum­bus an­nounced that it had made a con­di­tion­al agree­ment to be ac­quired by CWC. The pro­posed ac­qui­si­tion has been val­ued at US$3.025 bil­lion.