Yog Mahadeo is still two months away from stepping into the shoes of Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T). He becomes CEO on August 1. There is, however, evidence of a period of induction, an interregnum that has been set aside for him to grow accustomed to the authority of high office. Assertive rather than arrogant, he is not even remotely hesitant about heaping praises on his predecessor, Major General (retd) Joe Singh, whose retirement from the top of GT&T’s administrative pile will definitely not, we are told, mark a parting of ways with the company. The former Guyana Defence Force Chief of Staff is simply “moving on,” rather than receding into a finality of a pipe and armchair retirement. Singh, Mahadeo declares, has been his mentor and, based on the available evidence, appeared for some time to be grooming him as his successor.
When Stabroek Business met with Mahadeo behind the cluttered desk in the office of the CFO he appeared prepared to respond to even those delicate questions which only those in the highest authority at GT&T are usually allowed to address publicly; questions pertaining to issues like the prickly relationship between GT&T and the Government of Guyana and the status of the ongoing liberalization discourses that could change the face of the sector. Mahadeo’s responses reflected that mixture of fluency and casualness which suggested that he is already in possession of the authority to speak for GT&T.
Those issues, however, sensitive though they may be, do not appear to preoccupy Mahadeo. Rather, he appears far more eager to articulate what he describes as the “pioneering” role which the company has played in salvaging the retarded telecommunications service which it inherited and what he believes are the myriad developmental possibilities that will accrue from the footprint that GT&T has left.
About what GT&T has already accomplished Mahadeo points to the fact that the company has transformed the unreliable 13,000 – line service which it met in 1991 to a modern 145,000-line efficient contemporary service and its “single-handed” pioneering of the country’s cellular service. He says all that the company continues to look for out of what, until now, has been a US$350m investment in Guyana “is a fair return on our investment while we push our service and make access possible – as far as possible – for everyone.”
He is keen too to talk about the possibilities that inhere in GT&T’s recent landing of a new fibre optic cable system. Though the telecommunications build-out continues Mahadeo considers the company’s accomplishments in fixed and cellular telecommunications as landmarks that are already under its belt. He favours discourse on what lies ahead. With the completion of the submarine cable which is officially scheduled to be commissioned in July GT&T has already commenced meetings with both the public and private sectors to discuss what lies ahead. “We are a next generation company We are moving to an IP-driven service. We are refreshing our brand and reinventing ourselves in a manner that is consistent with our next generation focus.”
The commissioning of the new submarine cable will, Mahadeo says, trigger an initiative by GT&T “to ensure that every home and every business has access to the internet,” though, mindful of becoming a victim of exalted consumer expectations, he is quick to add that the service has to be “rolled out in phases.” What the company promises, however, is that the July commissioning date will coincide with the almost immediate upgrading of all existing DSL services in Georgetown to one capacity services, free of any additional cost. ‘Effectively we will be providing a four-fold increase in capacity. Our aim is to make the one meg a kind of gold standard in Guyana, comparing us favorably with the Caribbean.”
Mahadeo says that what excites him most about the possibilities that will accrue from this targeted expansion of capacity “are the myriad business opportunities” that will result therefrom. “Software services, security services, gaming services and firewall services are among those sectors in which new and expanded opportunities that will emerge. Just about any type of IT-related service will offer additional opportunities.” Here, Mahadeo measures the significance of the new submarine cable with a yardstick that goes beyond the company’s $US30m investment. “It would be easy for us to start a department inside GT&T that concentrates on software support for all of these services. But those are not our core businesses. Our role is to provide the enabling environment to facilitate the growth and expansion of those kinds of opportunities in the wider private sector.”
Mahadeo, who was recently elected Vice Chairman of the Private Sector Commis-sion, says that GT&T has already begun to engage local businesses “to make them aware of these new opportunities”. The “excitement” for both himself and GT&T, he says, reposes in watching the outward spread of the “ripples of opportunity” that have been created in GT&T’s investment in its next generation IT infrastructure. “What we are envisaging is making various public places like the airport, business parks, the Univer-sity Gardens and various other places internet ready. The wave of business meetings with the business community – which we are calling the blue wave – that we have started with the business community and with various other stakeholders across the country. The whole idea is to spread the word regarding the opportunities and possibilities that now exist.”
Mahadeo says that the evolution of GT&T’s next generation image embraces a process of looking in the mirror in order to monitor the process of change, to ensure that the transformation resembles that which the company envisages. “Our first drive is an internal one. We are seeking to transform our services internally. We are looking at our Call Centre operations; we are looking at our customer representatives and at our business offices themselves, to determine how we can better serve our customers. We are aiming at a one-call-serves-all goal that enables the customer to make a single call which call then gets to the individual or source responsible for addressing that problem.” Mahadeo says he is mulling what he describes as a hundred-day report, an assessment which shares with the public, an assessment which balances the commitments given by the company against what it delivers. It is a daring initiative, uncharacteristic of the preoccupation with confidentiality that has become second nature to the private sector. The aim of this initiative, he says, is to encourage customers to “talk back” to GT&T. “We have to involve the consumers. We cannot do it alone.”
Then Mahadeo changes gears, volunteering a discourse on “the revenue side” of the company. He dwells mostly on the 24 per cent decline in revenue on international calls, reflected in its recent 2010 First Quarter report, arriving unerringly at what he believes is one of the company’s biggest headaches, the bypass ‘industry’ that rakes in millions of dollars in revenue which ought correctly to accrue to the company. He explains the bypass system which comprises the outbound calls facilitated by Internet local Cafes and the Sim Banks which allow inward calls. The explanation is detailed rather than complex and what it amounts to is a multi million dollar diversion of revenue which the company has been near powerless to stop. Mahadeo says that some of the illegal providers are known to the company and that details of their operations have been communicated to the authorities. He goes no further except to say that while GT&T has the technological capacity to detect the illegal services the company has no authority to invade premises and close down such services. Over time, the illegal operators have become emboldened and, these days, they advertise their services in sections of the media. The loss of revenue, he says, concerns the company not altogether for its own sake but also on account of the losses suffered by its 20 per cent partner, the Government of Guyana. “Half of the millions that are lost each month ought correctly to accrue to the state in taxes,” he says.
Whatever “pressure” he feels over the bypass challenge has to do, he says, with “the great loss” to the country. “As I Guyanese, I feel a greater sense of concern over the revenue that is lost to the country as a result of this practice.”
Mahadeo says that on the local side the company’s cellular service experienced double digit growth over the last quarter. “I believe that this growth speaks to a premium service,” Mahadeo says.
On the issue of liberalization Mahadeo says that GT&T seeks what he describes as “a mature approach” to the issue. “There are other countries that have gone through this process already and we can learn from them. We can get it done without emotion and acrimony. I believe that there is now a realization that unless we clear this hurdle it will hurt the country. What I can say is that in the discussions with the authorities there has been a good rapport and, as well, an appreciation of our position. With the bypass problem, for example, the government has asked that we send them a list (of the suspected offenders) and we have done so. This was done about two weeks ago but of course I cannot say what the outcomes will be.”
Finally, Mahadeo touches on the theme of the company’s corporate conscience. He perceives it he says, as more than a question of good corporate practices. “It is a matter of our duty to this country. I believe that every organization in Guyana must by now have benefitted from GT&T’s benevolence. What we want to do is to play our part in the improving lives among individuals and in communities. By extension we seek to help enhance the quality of life in our country. In the final analysis that is much of what we really are about.”
