 The panel, the discussion, an objective and impartial view of the issues of interest to you. The nation beat is on now. Hello, good day. I'm Winston Springer Jr., here at the GIS Studios in Castry, St. Lucia. Welcome to this special interview. I'm joined by Cedric Leiburd, Ambassador Leiburd, from a telecommunications minister over in St. Kitt's Nevis. And also, he needs to do introductions. Sir Calyx, George, also a former minister for telecommunications right here in St. Lucia. Sir Calyx, Ambassador Leiburd, thanks for joining us. First question, why are we here? I know it has to do with the Eastern Cabin Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and you guys had something to do with that in terms of liberalizing the telecom space in which we inhabit right here in the OECS. Sir Calyx, you have the floor. Well, thank you very much for having me and for Cedric. First of all, we are here because Cedric has decided that he's giving me an award for my contribution to OECS liberalization in the past, probably two decades now. And so, Cedric was of the view that we should have a little chat about how this whole thing came about. And kind of a review of how did we get to the position that we are now in telecommunications. So he will tell you why it is that he's given me that award. Go ahead. Ambassador Leiburd. Well, first, I must say to you that the St. Kitt's Nevis Labor Party, leading up to the 1995 general elections, felt that the monopoly of Kavanaugh wireless in St. Kitt's Nevis is really a hindrance in progress to the development of St. Kitt's Nevis. And therefore, we thought that we should move towards liberalization of telecoms. And therefore, after elections of 1995, I was appointed Minister of Communication Works Public Utilities. And out of that, we were able to have meetings in the OECS, and that matter was discussed. And that is why Calix George was elected as the chair, and I was deputy chair. And since then, we have been working together. The same thing happened here. And the same thing precisely. So Calix, my question. Almost the same thing happened here because in 1997, I think it was, the Labor Party and the Labor Party manifesto, there was a portion that said that for us to diversify our economy, there was need to change the landscape for telecommunications. And so that is how it came about. So both St. Kitt's Nevis and St. Lucia were about the same thing. The only difference was that in the case of St. Lucia, our telecom license with Kavanaugh wireless was nearing an end. Okay? So we're looking at a zeitgeist prevailing mood on the ground from a public policy level. And it aligned with sort of a philosophical bent from these Labor Party administrations which swept to victory during that period. It was coincidental that around that same period, we had these kind of things. And of course, the philosophies of Labor Party is usually in the region more or less the same. So the thinking was that in our case, and it was clearly expressed in our manifesto that we were moving in the direction of changing the landscape and putting a platform by which we could diversify, particularly like let us say in financial services, okay? Yeah. And the whole area of visa technology for what you call centers and all that kind of stuff. So we're moving in our part of the world in St. Lucia, a monocrop society, a monocrop economy to a services sector. To a services sector. And that aligned with what was going on in other countries, not necessarily from a monocrop society. Once you go into the services sector, that means that you need adequate communication. Telecommunications across all different spheres including, as you said, financial services. Yes, yes. Whenever you get a wire, you use SWIFT, Society for Financial Telecommunications. That is a form of telecommunications. But before we could have gotten there, certain things had to happen. We couldn't just break the public policy or shape the public policy mold. There was a little hurdle to overcome. Well, what happened is that, well, Sidrick can talk for his kids. But in our case, we had to break the monopoly. Now, the first thing was to break the monopoly that cable in a wireless ad. And the second thing was to establish a proper telecoms policy for ourselves. Now, Sidrick can talk about what happened in St. Kitt's. But in our case in St. Lucia, we had, in the first instance, there was no telecommunications unit, for example, in the government of St. Lucia. So what I did when I became the minister was to establish a public utilities unit. And I got Sukhu Augustine, who was... Mr. Truscott. Truscott Augustine. Yes, Rastaman, and brought him in as a technical officer. And Dr. Anthony was quite generous in establishing a new unit in the Ministry of Works. So then we started to study the whole issue of telecommunications. And so we decided to have a telecommunications policy for St. Lucia. Similarly, I think... Well, in St. Kitt's... So what happened in St. Kitt's at the same time? In St. Kitt's, first, our license were all the way up to 2015. Wow. And we thought, as I've said, that was hindering us in moving forward because of the same moving in services. And when we checked the other islands in the OECS, they were basically the same, 2015 with the exception of St. Lucia. And it is out of that we thought that we should come together as an OECS group. And if you recognize that the OECS has had a platform in the past where we have our own common dollar, and therefore we thought that it is a group that we can sit together and we can take decisions. And it is out of that we were able to sit down in the OECS and moving this matter forward and we were able to. Yes. So a prime example of cross... Yes, yes. Unification. Functional cooperation. It's a beautiful case of the effects of coming together. Right. And OECS, we bound up together just like you have the Central Bank and so on and so forth, telecom came together. So in our case... So what happened is that we had to have harmonized policies. Yes. So we had our own, so they had their own and so on. But we all had to come together. We need uniformity. Uniformity. So we came together after consultation in each of our countries on what should happen to telecoms in the future. And having established a policy element for each country, then we came together, harmonized the thing and put together for our uniform OECS telecom communications policy. Now, having done the policy, there are certain actions to take part. I mean to take place. So we had to have telecommunications acts. Yeah. So in each country, we had telecommunication acts, modernized telecommunications acts. So each country, fashioning their own, but at the same time we must have some sort of synergy in terms of, well, first harmonizing... So we harmonized the policies and then of course the acts also harmonized. We had to sell this to all of our prime ministers in the OECS as the first thing, where they came on board and supported us. In terms of the harmonization, we had to get our attorney generals to understand what we were going to do. And it is out of that the policies, the legislation were discussed among the attorney generals after we were able to put our information together and handing it over to the attorney generals. So all of the legislation was the same except the name of the country and the other things along that line. But St. Kitts and Nevis had to put in St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia had to put in St. Lucia on the document. And we were given some specific times to pass all of these legislation. And all this is a precursor to the regulatory authority. Yes. But at the beginning, I want to start at the beginning, we spoke about a hurdle that needed to be overcome right here in St. Lucia, that sort of test case. And before that could have been replicated throughout the rest of the OECS. Yes, yes. Well, the major thing obviously was Kiblin wireless because Kiblin wireless infrastructure communications owned the whole region as far as... And when I say owned... We're talking technically in terms of the spectrum. Everything, everything. It was more or less like, you know, the main kind of imperialistic... More of a monopoly. More euphemistic. So what happened, for example, Kiblin wireless had a monopoly situation in all the islands and including Jamaica and Trinidad as well and Barbados. Okay? Incidentally, the region as a whole was interested. You know, so in fact we had things with Jamaica and so on. But after a while, as usual, well, the Jamaicans found that they were ahead of us and so on and so forth. And so they went ahead, did their own thing and so on. But in the end, we banded together and we had the best deal. Yes. So we overcome the Kiblin wireless. And it's important that today we understand what we're putting in context because some of the things we enjoy today... It's a very long story of Kiblin wireless because these guys were imperialists, right? And they thought that they owned us. Okay? We sell them. No, you can't do that because things have changed. So what they did, for example, was that... And I can give you some more details of how they exploited us in a while. So they would come in 1998, somewhere in 1999, just after we got into offices and so on. Since the St. Lucia telecoms agreement with Kiblin wireless was going to end in 2001, they came to us for an extension of the existing agreement. So when they came to us for the extension of the agreement, I said, no, no, no, brother, we can't go through that. You're not going to have an extension and so on. So they tried to play tricks with the ministers. For example, in my case, they went above my head and went to the prime minister. And so the fellow was bombarding me for me to give them that extension of the thing. So I said, no, I have a long nice letter which I had to write. I don't know if you want me to read it for you. That's all right. It's a very long letter where I had to put him in his place because what he was trying to do is to bypass me as the minister and go to the prime minister. Negotiation tactics. Tactics, you know, and so on. But suffice to say, we did overcome that over in St. Kitt's, what was the situation there in terms of moving past the Kibbelan wireless monopoly in the world? The same thing happened to him too. It was all through the islands. In fact, one time I was called and I was given a letter from the local agents in St. Kitt's saying that there was meeting in Barbados of all the prime ministers and they had come to some agreement. None of us ministers were at that level in that meeting. When I received the letter, I said, wow, I need to first discuss this with my prime minister. And after he returned home, I met with him and I said, look, I've just received this letter from Kibbelan wireless. And he said, Cedric, I am in support of the telecoms reform and please move in that direction. And that was all the discussion. The point I am making is that just as colleagues have said, they were trying at every opportunity to see how they can break us and get ahead of us. But it's important that we note and underscore the level of service we as a consumer was the level of service afforded to the consumer at that point in time. Not to just talk about the ironclad agreement with the likes of Kibbelan wireless and the monopoly, was that level of service reflective of a competitive market for the economy whereby there's diversity, there are options and the consumer is benefiting. So could you regale us with that period in time? What was the level of service? Well, I'll come to that in a while, but let me give you just a little incline of the way in which I handled it. Okay. Okay. I said here, that was to the general manager of Kibbelan wireless. He was saying that I should be able to give him an extension of the license and I said no. So I said here, in both your letters to me, you have made mention of the Prime Minister agreeing to commence negotiations on the extension of the license. I wish to indicate that you have misunderstood the position of the Prime Minister. You should have realized by now from the previous encounters that the question of Kibbelan wireless license via extension is out of the question in the current environment. First of all, the objective conditions that existed at the time of the negotiations of the existing licenses have changed completely and so the main elements of the current license are no longer relevant at the dawn of the new millennium. We must endeavor to close the chapter of colonialism and neocolonialism and start anew as co-equal partners. For example, the issue of exclusivity can no longer be applicable in the dispensation due to the concerns of the W2O, etc. So I had to put him in his place basically. That's a very strident letter. I can give you the whole details of the letter and so on. But it is important that people must realize the problems that we went through to break that monopoly and also laying the groundwork for the public policy that would inform what would later become the regulatory authority. But I wanted to womb in on the level of service afforded. In an environment where you have a monopoly, there is not exactly an advantage. Take for example of the normal rate and so on. Well, we would tell them, let us get a flat rate and so on. And they were still going to give us these trunk lines. Take for example, you making a call from grossly to castries. You paid a trunk call rate. We need to explain what a trunk call is. Well, you see you have... Generation Z might not understand what it is. You see in the old days, you had a system whereby you had telephone operators. So if you had to call to view for it, you had to call from castries to Henry. And it would be relayed. And then you relay and so on and so forth. So you're paying for that relay service? So you're paying for the relay service. But with modern technology, the thing was automatic. So there's no need for you to have any trunk. There was no operator in Denry or in Miku and so on to put you on to view for it. So it's akin to making an overseas call? Just imagine playing a trunk call from grossly to castries. So we are taking advantage of... And it's akin to playing an overseas call? Well, the overseas call is a different... Well, in terms of the rate that is, it was an extraordinary... Well, it was extraordinary, extraordinary. But we got them eventually to things on. So one of the first things that we had to do was to eliminate this trunk call business. Okay. So eventually they gave us a flat rate and so on. Ambassador Lieber, the same thing existed in St. Kitts? Yes. And how did you manage to break the monopoly of cable and wireless? For us, I guess it was expiration of a license that was not renewed for you. You said another license in agreement was... Up to 2050. Yeah. That's why we depended on St. Lucia and all the others coming together. Because while we have a united front, we were unballing going forward in breaking the monopoly for the overseas countries. I want to say it's a similar thing, but ours was like St. Kitts trunk call in Nevis. St. Kitts and Nevis, we had that. But I want to say that when we reached the point in the negotiations where they recognized that we were very serious about breaking the monopoly, they then pushed forward a figure that each country should pay if we wanted to break the monopoly. And that was about $485 million per country. $485 million per country. Yes, because you see, the licenses, the agreements that they had with the old government, said at the end, if we as a country wanted to end that agreement, the exclusive agreement, that we had to pay them and pay them a whole set of money. $485 million larger than some economies and in some respects some projects. Exactly. So we listened to them and we decided to find a strategy in going forward. I know in St. Kitts and Nevis, I reported back to my cabinet and I said, look, this is what Kebler Wallace is saying to us. St. Lucia is 2001, but we have to go all the way down to 2050. What can we do? And I said to the cabinet, look, what I would like to ask is that the Prime Minister support an audit of Kebler Wallace. And so we did. And then what? We brought in a forensic auditor from Canada and we associated him with the Ministry of Finance directly in Inland Revenue and we were able to carry out that audit. And what would it reveal? Well, it was where at the end, Kebler Wallace, oh, St. Kitts and Nevis, over $20 million. And if they owed one cent, the agreement is broken. And that was the easiest way in getting there. So these were the seminal events that will eventually lead to... Well, let's take a break. Are you watching this special interview? We're talking about the advent of the modern telecommunications sector, right here in the OECS, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. That includes St. Lucia and St. Kitts, our special guest. It's the colleagues George Sr. He is a former telecoms minister in St. Lucia, joined also by Ambassador Sidrick Leibler, former minister of telecoms over in St. Kitts and Nevis. We'll take a quick break when we come back. We'll talk about the advent of the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, as well as the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commissions, which sort of regulate the sectors in the various territories in the OECS. We'll be back after this. Quick break. We'll be back after this. Quick break. Quick break. Quick break. The health and safety life that is made by Syri, who is very simple, because they join in good health quality and are very important. It's not only a tax. It's our investment in health and health and very simple. In the summer, we'll have to do as much as we can to ensure that the health and safety of all its citizens is in place. Welcome back to this special interview. We're talking telecoms. I'm Winston Springer Jr., our in-studio guest at the GIS Studios in Castries from the telecoms ministers, Sir Khaled George Sr., of St. Lucia, and of course, Sidrick Leibler, Ambassador Leibler from the telecoms minister over in St. Kitts and Nevis. Before the break, we spoke about the precursor to the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, that is ECTAIL, which regulates the telecom space right here in the OECS. Sir Khaled, before we went to break, we were speaking about trying to break that monopoly of cable and wireless. What drove you as a then minister was what you viewed as the exploitation of that consumer market in the OECS. I understand. You have some stories to tell. I will give you some details of why I had to break it and we had to break it because we exploited it. Now, you remember that I told you there was no unit dealing with telecoms, okay? And so I had got Sukhu. And Sukhu did some research and we did some research. I'd been a researcher by profession. That's what I did all my life. I set up a research unit and I had Sukhu and Barry Morphilicier as his assistant. Barry Morphilicier is now the PS in agriculture. And so we went down and got information on why it was that we really had to break up things. I'll just give you some idea. Go ahead. Okay? Cable and wireless financial statements for 1997, which is the way we got office. Worldwide showed a total profit of 1.2 billion pounds sterling, serving some 20 million customers, a profit level per customer of 60.62 pounds sterling. Compared with the Caribbean, where there were total profits of 194 million pounds sterling from a customer base of 850,000 persons, a profit level of 228 pounds sterling per customer, 228 pounds. That's a profit in the Caribbean. In Dominica in 1997, they made 24.7, almost 25 million pounds with a customer base of 19,200. That's given a profit level of 308 pounds per customer, right? The latest figure for St. Lucia showed a level of 56 million EC dollars, all right? With a customer base of about 35,000, just given a profit level of a customer of $1,600 per customer, or 364 pounds sterling per customer, right? So that small consumer market producing all that profit? So the profit levels per customer in the Caribbean was 300% higher than that generated worldwide, 300% greater than the whole world. A small market. A small market, the Caribbean. Small populations. But listen to that. Limited economies of scale. The profit level for customer for Dominica and St. Lucia was over 400% higher than the international figure, 400%. It is worth noting that the Caribbean region with 855,000 customers or 45% of the whole of Kiblin wireless customers base generated 16% of Kiblin wireless's profit levels internationally. So there's no question about it. There's no question about it that we were being exploited to the extreme, all right? So we're going to open up the market. We're moving past. You asked me the reasons why. I mean, there's no reason. There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it in my mind that I had to break that kind of exploitation of things. Poor people. You're taking advantage of poor people in the Caribbean. The levels of rates and so on. 38, 400%. Astronomical. Higher. Yeah. Than the world average. So we're moving past Kiblin wireless. Okay, let us go. Okay, so we got that. So now we have to go. Let's talk about the incipient shoots of Ectel. How do we get to it? Okay, all right. And the environment in which today we enjoy this smartphone in my pocket being able to utilize that, being able to use our numbers, suite of services including the call centers, the broadcast space as well, because that also led to the revision of the broadcast act here in St. Lucia in the year 2000. We finally had a whole series of meetings with them because we were very serious about breaking that monopoly. And then we had passed, I told you, we passed the acts. The various acts and the various things and so on. But we still had to negotiate with them. And their position, very haughty, saying that, look, you all have to pay us a certain amount of money to terminate those. A lot of money. I think Sid would talk about it. Yeah. Okay. So we said, no, we couldn't agree to that. So eventually, we came together as a unit. Let us put it that way. The negotiations had broken down after a period of time. Okay? Because we were not taking anything. As a matter of fact, at one time, I got blows from Rick Wayne and so on, where I called, there was a woman, a lady, who was the lawyer, Cable and wireless. Now, you know, in the same kind of slavery thing, you have those people in there. So I had to refer to her as a house slave. You're not the one to shy away from controversy. I am not. And I didn't go back from categorizing her. I want to bring Ambassador. Because it's a typical, you are in a plantation slavery type of situation. I want to bring Ambassador. Where the dominance, where they are dominating you and you're supposed to take whatever they give you. But obviously, you want to make some changes. So you have your intermediate house slave there to assist you and so on and so on. Ambassador, I brought in a more typical... No, but I must say that when I call her that, my prime minister. In fact, the night before... Any regrets about that? No, no regrets. But the night before my prime minister... That'll be Dr. Kenny Antony at the time. Who in fact was the lecturer of that lady because she had done law at UWI and so on and so forth. And then Dr. Antony told me to go easy and take it easy and so on. But the situation was such that I couldn't take it. So I called her that and so on. So I had to go to Dr. Antony and of course, apologize. And he was very generous and so on. You took it back. You apologized for unfortunate things. To Dr. Antony, my boss, my prime minister. And this has written history. My prime minister. But the point about it, we got over it. I got support from fellows like... Oh yes. Ambassador Lieber. That's why I wanted to bring him in. Yeah, yeah. For me, what I saw during those times was really a united front among the ministers. And as I've said, the prime ministers were able to support us. However, on the other side of the negotiating team, we saw quite a bit of changes in their leadership. You remember that? Oh yes, yes, yes. We saw Jamaica at one time, someone from Jamaica came in as chair and others. Because they recognized that the monopoly was coming to an end and they were trying... They joined. Yes. They were on board. I want to say that we did a very, very good job. And that's why I always support the OECS because we were and always will be, I hope, a strong, united force. And without this, we don't get the Helen ITs. We don't get DigiCell coming into that market. We don't get a certain customer choice in terms of which form... No, if we didn't do that, we would not have got that. You wouldn't have reached that. I'll come to that in a while. And you don't get what today we have a certain democratization of our media space. You wouldn't have that. No, you wouldn't have had that. If you didn't have the groundwork for... But as he said, they call on resources. Kimmel Wallace used the resource outside. Yes. When they couldn't crack us. Yeah. They brought fellas from Barbados, for example. There was a clerk. Yeah. A clerk. I can't remember... It was Trevor Clark, I think. But he was a Kimmel Wallace man, a big man. So they brought him down to try and soften us and so on. That didn't work, of course. Clark... Clark, interestingly, Clark thought that he would be able to, you know, come and talk to me and things like that. Pacify or switch. Because he happened to have been a cousin of Hilfner Determin, who was my good friend at our advisor, our legal advisor, and so on. So all kinds of tricks, right? And then finally they had to bring down Miller from Jamaica, okay? Right. Miller was a big man in Kimmel and Wallace, the big director of Kimmel and Wallace. I'm talking about then the intrigue of the negotiations. Yes, yes, yes. And Miller's wife was Portia Simpson. Okay. Over in Jamaica. In Jamaica. Right. So you see the level at which they think. But that didn't work. So eventually, let us put it that way, eventually we got them to agree to most of the conditions that we had laid down. That they would not get an exclusive license. All right? That we will not pay any kind of termination. That all the OECS countries will terminate on the same date as St. Lucia. Yes. In fact, the whole thing came to an end seven days after the St. Lucia termination date was due in 2001. And so we got everything together. Now, having got that, we then had changes in the rates. You know, people were able to bring in new things. We got new service providers. Both AT&T came in. AT&T came in 2003. Right. And Dennis O'Brien from Digicel. Ireland, yeah. From Ireland. Right, right. Now, again, it's interesting as you say that. I'll give you a little story. Dennis O'Brien was an Irishman, right? Right. I had been trained, my whole education, right, had been more or less nurtured by Irish guys. We're talking about the brothers. Right. We're referring to the St. Mary's college, Catholic one, the brothers. Yeah. In my, you know, trying to assist the Irishman to get a license and so on. So anyway, that's how Digicel got their license. They got their license. AT&T got their license and so on. And then they started to give, you know, AT&T 518 and so on. Right, right, right. Those numbers. Right. They signed numbers. Right. In having the, keep in mind having the structures, right, in existence, the physical infrastructure, the, you couldn't have new companies come in and put in additional infrastructure. So they had to connect. Right. So there's the whole question of interconnection. Right. All right. You had to, they had to interconnect. So the first set of interconnection between. That was another. Between. Well, this thing is. Digicel. You'll have to have a five-part series on there. Digicel, Digicel and Cable and Wireless. Right. The English and the Irish. Right. Boy. Oh. Blows. Right. So they couldn't agree. So they called Dr. Anthony and myself to come to think. Dr. Anthony and myself spent two days and two nights. Negotiate. Negotiate. Or trying to get them to negotiate. Get some compromise of concessions. Or in terms of the interconnection and so on. And boy, if you heard exclusives between the English and the Irish, you wouldn't believe it. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't have what we have today. No, no, no. If we didn't. Telephony. Eventually they had, I'm curious, had to agree. Right. At interconnection rates and so on, you know. But these are the kind of the intricacies that had to occur. Before we actually could get Digicel to operate. When we first started. Because Digicel had to be competitive too. And if they were going to carry up their rates for Digicel to get hooked into the system, it was not going to be competitive for them. And I'm thinking it's the bedrock of all capitalist driven markets, democracies. The market will decide. That's right. And that's what you were fighting for. To decide. You could have a monopoly. You could no longer have a monopoly. And that would be antithetical to any sort of democratic capitalistic market driven philosophy. So that's the situation. That's how the new service provider came into the situation. And we have the regime that we have today. And we have the regime that we have today. I must say though that I personally have some concerns about both the NTRCs and ECTEL. Because what we did is that in the regulation of the new system, each country had to have a national telecommunications regulatory commission. And then you had ECTEL. The overarching umbrella. There are certain things that in terms of the issuance of a license, ECTEL had to give it the go ahead. Although it was the minister that signed the eventual license at the national level. But these are the relationships between ECTEL and NTRCs. One of the things that we did, for example, one of the things that we did, Cedric, the payment of the license, what happened before? Cameron Wallace used to do all the things and at the end of the day, say the profit was so and so and then they give the government a few dollars. Okay, we say no, no, no, no. You've got to pay your license fees. And your license fees must be paid on your gross revenue. Not your net. That still exists today. Well, I hope that that continues. Because the day it goes back and that's why I'm putting it out right now to the NTRCs and ECTEL, that they must never go against that principle that we established. Because that is the money from the gross that you're going to get to run both the NTRC and ECTEL. And the day you see that that is, you know, you go back to the original thing, the exploitation will come back. So as far as I am concerned, we must keep that thing going. As I've said, yes, that's for us. If ECTEL is going to make sure that carries out the whole liberalization, we have to make sure that the revenues are collected. Because if that does not happen, the doors of ECTEL and the NTRCs will be closed. Those, yes. I want to start from the beginning because I think we have to wind things down and why we are here. As we said from the outset, Ambassador Lai, with your appreciation for the roles that colleagues played, I understand that you have a special presentation to make to him right here. Yes, but before the presentation, before the presentation, in terms of the ECTEL NTRC thing, one of the things that we did was that we had what you call a universal service fund. The universal services fund, yes. Which is for people in communities and so on. You cannot get that service, you prop that up through that fund. And that fund was also a certain percentage of the gross revenue as well. From the license fees. Providers have to, every provider, whether it is digital or whether it is Kibben or others, I do not know to what extent. The regime you set up was one where it was self-sustaining, whereby the revenues from the licenses would help those who are marginalized on the fringes and at the same time sustain the regulator fund. Now, we were forward-looking in terms of the things that would go into the universal service fund. And allowances have to be made because technologies change and things change over a period of time. And one of the things recently that I thought should have occurred was when the government was introducing the laptops and the internet services and so on for schools. As far as I was concerned, this should be paid by the universal service fund. So the governments would not have to pay for supplying the school children because children, that's the education of their children. The education of the kids, the new formulating digital world and so on, they have to be okuan. So when they told me something about how they're going to pay some and then they're going to pay another percentage and so I said no. The governments should have insisted that the universal service fund. Now, even if it did not express that particular type of thing, at that time, until that is correct, so you now have to, as far as I'm concerned, my opinion is that you have to go and probably specify some of the munitions that should go into the universal service fund. It's basically a recommendation to all the present OECS communications and telecoms ministers. They really now should be looking at this and update their legislation to include all of this because as I said, this is something now new in order to make sure that this fund also provides for those laptops in the various schools. In St. Kitt's, we provide laptops for all of our students and we believe that what is needed now is in the same environment, which is the buildings in the school, you should have the internet services and that fund should really be providing for that services. Another thing too is the new ways in which they teach. And the incorporation of the smart classrooms and the digital technology. All that, as far as I'm concerned, should move into that. Yeah, because you talked about this basically telecommunication space. That's right. You understand? And so the government shouldn't be able to bear that brunt when you can actually get it from the thing. There's one thing though, I wanted to think in terms of the new thing. A lot of people still call me and complain these days about the rates. There seem to be some increase in the rates and so on, and their bills go up and the question of... But I guess it's driven by the market, driven by inflation, driven by... Data into the thing and so on and so forth. Now, I do not know... It's adjusted for inflation. No, no, no, it may be that. Some of it, some of it. I'm not sure. But what I'm concerned about is the way in which the providers are giving you packages where they bundle things and so on. So I do not know to what extent those bundles are really fair. And I'm not sure whether the NTRC's and ECTEL are going into the belly to get a closer look at how they formulate or come up with these packages. Right, that is correct. So that is something which I think that... The warrants attention. Yeah, that's what we set up the NTRC and ECTEL to do. To look into all these kinds of things, wherever you have changes in terms of rates and so on. How did you come about to tell me that if I have so many minutes you give me so many minutes and so on. And the other thing too is... And you want to get some transparency in that process. Right, right. And the other one is the question of prepayments and so on. Right. That kind of thing. So there are a lot of new things that are coming up as you go along and ECTEL and so on. I'm hoping we'll do the policing that is necessary. As a regulator. As a regulator. Yeah. As we said, we wanted to start from the beginning. So let's go back to the beginning. Why we were here. Yeah. As ambassador of the library. For Calyx, I guess. His efforts in laying the groundwork almost 30 years ago. Yes. And what we enjoy today in terms of the liberalization of a market and the democratization of a digital and telecom space in the region. Well, as we said before, it's out of the efforts of the former ministers of telecoms why we are seeing the influx of all of these telephones. We now have telephones where persons are now carrying two phones. And this is as a result of the hard work of Calyx himself and the other ministers in the OECS. And as was his deputy before, I thought I should come to St. Blusher and make this small token of appreciation to him that I wish to do that now. This... You might have to hold it up a lot. ...reads, I will turn it when I finish. Presented to, and I'm changing the word from honorable to sir, Calyx, George, for your leadership and invaluable contribution to the liberalization of telecom sector in the OECS during your chairmanship and tenure as former minister of telecoms, telecommunications of St. Blusher. And it comes from your student. Let's hold it like this. It's okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sidrick. I also wish to thank you, really, for making me have two consecutive terms as chairman of OECS. Yes, yes, yes. Sidrick was very, very adamant that I should have... I was the first chairman, and he was supposed to be the second chairman, right? But he insisted that I have two terms. So I need to thank you very much. Yes. Thank you. I want to give you my latest book, which is on my alma mater, St. Mary's College. Thank you. You will be getting another book later on, and you too. There's another release in the works. Yes, I'm writing my autobiography. Wow. My autobiography will deal with a lot of these issues and so on in more detail, like the cable and wireless thing, and other things, you know. So when it comes, then you'll be getting another book. Thanks. Well, Sir Calyx, Ambassador Lybird. Sir Calyx, been a pleasure. Faithful and dear friend of my dad, I'm honored to be here to conduct this interview with you two gentlemen. I also want to thank you, the viewers, for tuning in. We have a special look at the telecom space in St. Lucia and the rest of the OACS, talking about the advent of hard work that went into ensuring that some of the services that we enjoy today in a more democratized and liberalized telecom space, we all enjoy that. But the hard work has to be put into getting to this point in time. I want to once again thank our guests, Sir Calyx George from the telecoms minister in St. Lucia, Ambassador Sidrick Lybird out of St. Kitts and Elis or from the telecoms minister. I am Winston Springer Jr., signing off from the studio's here at the Government Information Service in Castries. Thank you very much, cousin. Thank you very much, cousin. Bye-bye. Thank you. The economy, climate change, health, justice and security and tribunalship, youth development, innovation, the panel, the discussion, an objective and impartial view of the issues of interest to you, nation beat on NTN, Cable Channel 122, also on YouTube and Facebook. Join the conversation.