Telecommunications: Minister general Vital strikes back, companies in the sight

According to general Vital, the debate does not make sense since the challenged project does not exist yet: “No official order has yet been issued, there´s no need to panic”. The HAT´s government has to deal with the side effects of its own led lack of transparency. The choice of the company meant to manage the international gateway would have already been completed. The state is consequently not the single beneficiary. The gateway is however still a project. “They heard of it and panic” argued the minister against the union of telecommunication investors (GOTICOM).

The general who took over the telecommunication minister´s role has not yet completely thought the right figures up in order to erect the structure meant to take telecommunications back to the Stone Age: “The state is losing very year 25 millions of minutes”. Are communication minutes supposed to belong to the state? He declared that Madagascar could emulate various other nations in this sense: “such gateways are installed in Mauritius, Senegal and soon in the Comoros”.

And the general unleashed the strike back: “private companies´ interests are the stake, and not the country´s interest”. The HAT´s prime minister did not forget to leave an opened door for talks, as investors are longing for “the implementation of measures dealt with all of the economic actors”.

The private sector´s great family has pledged support to the GOTICOM by denouncing the HAT state´s intentions to grant supremacy to a single company in the business. The union of investment companies and the GOTICOM are jointly standing against “the state led threat against liberal economy, namely the increase of controlling structures meant to be installed in business sectors like telecommunication, customs, trade and oil.”

The union of investment companies is holding these structures as “faked solutions which will only undermine an already burdened trade by extending costs and delays without any single advantage for the consumer”.

The international gateway will cost 85 millions US$ over 5 years. Companies and consumers are going to be the one to pay them. The telecommunication minister´s policy is primitive: making money from communication instead of promoting a promising sector in terms of new jobs.