Leader of the opposition Antigua Labour Party, Lester Bird is calling on telecommunications giant Digicel, to scrap its plan to provide 15 000 homes in certain communities across the country with Internet access free of cost, calling the scheme “iniquitous.”
Bird said,” I believe it is right and proper that the owners of Digicel in Ireland should abandon this scheme into which they may have unwittingly been suckered by the UPP.”
The opposition leader said he believes the areas chosen to receive this consideration by December 2010, were selected because “when the areas for the give away are scrutinised, it is clear that they fall within two constituencies that are the subject matter awaiting the decision of the Court of Appeal.”
The former prime minister was referencing the trial in which Justice Louise Blenman declared invalid three constituencies following the 2009 General Elections.
The areas to benefit are the entire area hemmed in by Kentish Main Road to Perry Bay Main Road down to the Cooks sanitary landfill; the whole of Yorks Village; and Dickenson Bay Street to the APUA power plant on Friar’s Hill Road, covering the Upper Fort Road area down to Fort Road and back to the Yorks area. The boundary on the Nut Grove side is yet to be finalised
Telecommunication Officer Clement Samuel categorically denies Bird’s charge. He told The Daily OBSERVER, yesterday the areas were selected from a survey carried out by The Census Office in collaboration with an ICT consultant seconded from the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation in April 2008 and the results were published on the government’s Web site in September 2008.
Samuel said the free Internet access is only part of the Connect Antigua Initiative, which aims to ensure that every house has a PC and Internet access by 2012.
“ You have to look at the initiative in its entirety. Digicel has committed to placing access centre in 12 schools – nine government and three private schools. The initiative calls for broadband internet for all these schools and in three communities,” Samuel said.
The man charged with carrying out the programme said Digicel was interested in “providing the access to the greatest concentration of people who required it. (Antigua Observer)
