Cabinet Approves Amendments to Telecommunications Act

KINGSTON — Cabinet has approved amendments to the Telecommunications Act to address certain insufficiencies in the current legislation.

This was disclosed by Minister with responsibility for Information, Telecommunications and Special Projects, Hon. Daryl Vaz, at September 29 post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.

“The proposed amendments will address weaknesses identified in the Telecommunications Act and afford the Regulatory bodies the authority to address these issues,” he said.

Mr. Vaz also noted that appropriate drafting instructions have been issued to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel.

Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, in announcing the Government’s approval of the acquisition of the Claro network by Digicel on August 30 at a sitting of the House of Representatives, said in light of the takeover, it had become necessary to fast-track specific aspects of the amendments to the Act, to enable the regulator (Office of Utilities Regulation) to discharge its functions more effectively.

“The Prime Minister had given a six-week timeline from he made the announcement in Parliament and on Monday (September 26), we were advised that it (would) get to Parliament within three weeks, which would bring us just in the timeline mentioned by the Prime Minister, and therefore that in itself will allow for the OUR to be able to deal with some of the issues that arose for the approval of that merger,” he said.

Some of the amendments that are being fast-tracked include: empowering the regulator to obtain information from licensees without a formal enquiry; the automatic amendment of the terms and conditions of all interconnection agreements to conform to the most current Reference Interconnection Agreement authorised by the regulator; and enabling the regulator to determine application rates and charges to take into account all relevant factors, including cost orientation and local and international benchmarks.

The proposed changes will also empower the regulator to prescribe, after consultation with the Fair Trading Commission, competitive safeguards aimed at preventing anti-competitive activity in the market; and make special provisions to protect small service providers in utilising services offered by large carriers, including the power and responsibility of the regulator to examine and approve customer contracts for wholesale and retail services.

By Chris Patterson, JIS Reporter