The latest spate of thefts of insulated copper cable installed by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) to provide its local landline service could have implications for customer access to the expanded internet facilities currently being rolled out in the wake of the launch of the new submarine cable.

“Of course the cable theft could mean that some people’s access could be delayed or disrupted. The fact is that you need a telephone service if you are to benefit from the facility,” GT&T’s Security Manager Edgar Blackman told Stabroek Business in a telephone conversation earlier this week.

Last week, the company issued a statement in which it said that its copper cable installations had been hit by a fresh wave of vandalism, mostly in urban areas including North East La Penitence, Middle Road La Penitence and Stevedore Housing Scheme. Blackman told Stabroek Business that between Tuesday and Friday of last week the vandalism and thefts appeared to have intensified with at least four incidents having occurred during that period. Last week’s incidents of cable vandalism and theft coincided with the formal launch of the country’s first submarine telecommunications cable, a facility which GT&T says will revolutionize the IT sector in Guyana.

While GT&T says it is not in a position to say whether the perpetrators are bent on disrupting the telephone system or whether the incidents represent the latest manifestation of the long-standing practice of removing and selling lengths of the insulated copper cable, Blackman conceded that the practice, apart from costing the company significant sums of money, also puts pressure on its resources. This time around, according to Blackman, the company lost “hundreds of feet of cable,” which, when added to repair costs would have meant millions of dollars in losses for the company.

Government has moved to ban the export of scrap metal following a spate of thefts from local utility companies including GT&T, Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) and Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) Blackman, however, agreed, that the fact that GT&T’s installations continue to be targeted despite the ban on scrap exports suggests that there are other ways of exporting metal.

This newspaper has been informed by various sources of major illegal scrap metal export operations which see metal ‘exported’ to Brazil, Suriname and Venezuela. Unconfirmed reports have indicated that illegal exporters have traded scrap for oil with operators in Brazil.

Blackman told Stabroek Business that last Saturday a man was apprehended with a section of stolen cable and that it was likely that he would be charged by the police. However, GT&T appears to have been unable so far to make a significant breakthrough in what has turned out to be the murky business of scrap metal trade in which there is sometimes little distinction if any between the thieves who vandalize GT&T’s cable and the legitimate scrap metal dealers who buy the cable. Blackman told Stabroek Business that the company has long believed that the thefts are anything but random. “If you look at the size and bulk of a 600-pair cable, it is not the sort of thing that you steal without knowing how you will get rid of it,” Blackman said. “The thieves know where they are taking these things,” he added.
And Blackman told Stabroek Business that the security challenge posed by the extent of the build-out has meant that the company has had to rely increasingly on the Guyana Police Force and on residents in the communities that are victims of cable vandalism. “We try to make the point to residents that they are stakeholders in the situation and we have had cases in which they have helped us apprehend offenders. On the other hand the thieves themselves are clever. They tend to select areas in which they are least likely to be detected,” he said.