Legislation Coming to Guard Against Theft of Telecommunications Infrastructure

The Government will be bringing legislation to Parliament to protect against vandalism and theft of critical telecommunications infrastructure.

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, made the disclosure during a statement in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (July 9).

He said that there are persons “who have made it their business to go and steal fuel from the generators that power the backup service for the repeaters that give all of us connectivity – online service, telephone, Internet”.

“But it is worse than that; they are stealing the batteries and stealing the generators themselves. We must call it out because there are communities where the people know who is doing it. It is no different from the goat thief; it is no different from the people who steal the copper wires. They put our economy at risk, they put our telecommunication service, which gives us our security and access, at risk,” he stressed.

The Prime Minister said that Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, Hon. Darly Vaz, has been instructed to bring legislation “very quickly” to Parliament regarding the protection of certain infrastructure that is declared as critical.

He noted that the telecommunications companies have indicated that their systems would have been far more resilient were it not for these acts of theft and vandalism.

He said that some entities reported that they took the precautionary measure of refuelling before the hurricane and on the day of refuelling or shortly thereafter their sensors indicated that there was no fuel.

Describing these acts as “despicable”, the Prime Minister said it is important that Jamaicans understand that the loss of telecommunications service is not due to incompetence or lack of care. “It’s sometimes the very people who are in your community that do it,” he pointed out.

Mobile phone and internet connectivity have largely been restored to most urban centres, and efforts are ongoing to re-establish full coverage in rural and remote areas.

Flow has reported that as of July 8, its population coverage is 81 per cent, while Digicel has indicated that 85 per cent of mobile phone customers are now online.