NT unions, ministry see eyeball to eyeball

KATHMANDU,DEC 16: 

Employees unions at Nepal Telecom (NT) today blamed Minister for information and communication J P Gupta of being influnced by mafias to liquidate the NT. In a press meet here in the capital today, all five trade unions of telecom blamed minister for being irresponsible.

The minister had said that the NT has to pay Rs 20 billion licence renewal fee in the meeting at Public Accounts Committee under Legislature Parliament on December 12. Similarly, he had blamed the state owned telecom service provider of not giving interconnection facility to the other service providers including Ncell and UTL.

It seems the minister is influnced by other telecom service providers, trade unions representatives charged. Nepal Telecommunications Authority is also surrounded by mafias, employees’ unions blamed. “The secretary, minister and authority gave licence in different conditions and standards to the different telecom service providers influenced by the telecom mafias,” they added.

Ministry and the authority have been involved in massive corruption in frequency issue, they added. “The ministry and regulator are planning to ruin the business of Nepal Telecom since the promotion of private telecom service providers is not possible without making NT weak.”

Employees unions also demanded to introduce strategic partner at the earliest. They demanded to appoint chief executive in the company through free competition.

Telecom Employees’ Associations of Nepal, Nepal Telecom Worker’s Union (NTCWU), Nepal Telecom Employees Union (NTEU) and National Employees Organisation Nepal (NEON) also threatened to come up with protest programmes, if the government do not show readiness to solve NT problems.

Source: THT