Kali­fa Clyne

A "bobolee" of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) chair­man Sel­by Wil­son was the cen­tre­piece at a protest demon­stra­tion by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU) out­side the agency's Barataria of­fices yes­ter­day.In an ear­ly ob­ser­vance of the lo­cal Good Fri­day tra­di­tion, mem­bers of the union kicked, punched and even bat­tered the "bobolee" with a stick to ex­press their op­po­si­tion to TATT's ap­proval of the ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al by Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (CWC).

"At this cur­rent time TATT has ef­fec­tive­ly sold out the na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny," CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joseph Re­my said.He ques­tioned the change of de­ci­sion by TATT be­tween March 12 and March 26.On March 12, TATT ex­pressed con­cern about ad­verse ef­fects stem­ming from CWC's 49 per cent stake the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT). How­ev­er, less than two weeks lat­er, the reg­u­la­to­ry an­nounced that ap­proval had been giv­en to CWC af­ter the com­pa­ny agreed to di­vest its shares at TSTT with­in 12 months.

"TATT has con­doned con­flict of in­ter­est. Ca­ble and Wire­less ap­plied for this ac­qui­si­tion while they were on the board of TSTT," Re­my said."We are de­mand­ing that a probe be launched in­to the process utilised by TATT to ar­rive at their change in po­si­tion."He al­so ques­tioned the agree­ment be­tween the Na­tion­al En­ter­prise Lim­it­ed (NEL) con­sid­er­ing share­hold­ers were not in­formed of the de­tails.

"We will con­tin­ue to protest pub­licly. We are ex­am­in­ing our le­gal op­tions right now. We be­lieve that the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try in T&T has been sold for 30 pieces of sil­ver by Sel­by Wil­son and his co­horts at TATT," he saidIn let­ters ad­dressed to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai and Ken­ny Lue Chee Lip, chair­man of Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed, the CWU claimed there was a lack of trans­paren­cy in TATT's ap­proval of the merg­er, re­sult­ing in the na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny be­ing sold out "with­out due care and con­sid­er­a­tion."

CWU al­so raised ques­tions about the con­di­tions set out by TATT for CWC to dis­pose of its 49 per cent share­hold­ing in TSTT.

TATT re­sponds

TATT CEO Cris Seecha­ran, who spoke with re­porters fol­low­ing the CWU protest, said ap­proval of the CWC/Colum­bus merg­er will lead to more vi­brant com­pe­ti­tion in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion in­dus­try. He said this will ben­e­fit cus­tomers"We did thor­ough analy­sis, both eco­nom­ic and le­gal, be­fore grant­i­ng ap­proval and we don't see how this could neg­a­tive­ly af­fect con­sumers," he said.

Seecha­ran said TATT had giv­en CWC 12 months to di­vest its shares in TSTT and dur­ing that time it will not be in TSTT's board­room and will not have any­thing to do with the com­pa­ny's de­ci­sions.