Previous Story
‘We just want the process followed’
|
Posted on Nov 01 2011
By Clarissa David
Reporter
Reporter
Following the Public Utilities Commission’s decision to approve the application of Guam-based GTA TeleGuam to do business in the CNMI, IT&E said it “doesn’t mind competition” but wants the process to be transparent.
“We’re competing now with Docomo [Pacific]. But I just want people to go through a process that is not in the dark, that everybody can comment on, that process is followed to a T and no one gets favorable treatment,” said IT&E president and chief executive officer Ricky Delgado Jr. Friday at IT&E’s presentation of its donated children’s playground at Pakpak Beach Park in San Antonio.
Delgado told reporters about IT&E’s plan to appeal the CPUC decision that was made during a board meeting last Thursday, saying that “there are many things that we feel were not followed.”
GTA filed its application with the CPUC on March 22, 2011. Georgetown Consulting, CPUC’s consultant, recommended approving the application.
In a statement issued last week, GTA said that it will start its operations in the CNMI in mid-2012.
Delgado emphasized that the Commonwealth will lose potential investors “at a time when we really need it” if they believe that some investors get “favors” in conducting their businesses.
“I’ve always said even from the first day we started doing business here is that the way for Saipan to attract investors is just to make it a level playing field for every single company.And as long as investors see that everybody goes through the same, more people will have reasons to invest here,” he added.
Delgado said they are hopeful that the CPUC “will go back and go step by step through the process as they should, as they did for us.” He noted, though, that whatever CPUC decides after it goes back through the process “is what they decide.”
Should GTA set up shop in the CNMI, Delgado said that IT&E is banking on the improvements it has made since they bought the company to be able to compete in the increasingly crowded local telecommunications market.
“I think a lot of people would want to support a company like IT&E [which] really started from nothing here and is based here than a company that’s just here in one day, out the next day,” added Delgado.
