The government has accused telecommunication providers Digicel and Flow of not collecting the recently instituted tax on international calls.
At its meeting on Wednesday, the Cabinet reiterated its intention to ensure that the telecoms carriers, which terminate international calls here, abide by the law that came into effect in January 2018.
The carriers are required to collect US$0.05 cents on each call, and those monies are to be deposited into a special fund to stimulate entrepreneurial growth among the youth interested in owning their businesses.
It is estimated that the fund could raise more than $500,000 annually, and would be a boost to small businesses.
“The carriers have not been collecting the tax, and the Cabinet has asked the Minister to meet with the two carriers this week in order to advance the collection,” a Cabinet statement said.
Meanwhile, the telecoms firms are to meet with a Cabinet subcommittee to discuss space on the spectrum for APUA Telecoms.
The previous administration divided the spectrum among two carriers, leaving APUA without any space on the spectrum. Negotiations on the re-assignment will begin this week.
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What they are failing to say is that APUA was not interested in the spectrum when the initial assignments were done ,as their focus was in ADSL and fiber. Therefore their share of the spectrum was divided between Cable and Wireless and Digicel. I hate to see people spin things to suit themselves.
Your assertion is patently untrue. APUA was shut out of the negotiations by a certain man so sure. It was the same fellow who tried to destroy APUA internet and cellphone business since he had certain interests in ensuring that APUA did not thrive. According to him, APUA had no business being a competitor. There was absolutely no project involving telecommunications in which that said person involved APUA. In fact, the administration went as far as reassigning certain government departments telephone numbers from APUA with “landlines” from one of the foreign service providers. My dear Greenhorn, a sage saying admonishes us to “tell the truth and shame the Devil.”
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