By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A former Governor General says her experience with Cable Bahamas after it disconnected her TV service enabled her to “buy into [the] denunciation” of Bahamian utility services, adding that this nation was falling “so short” of its ‘full Bahamianisation’ ideal.
Dame Ivy Dumont, in an October 3, 2012, letter to the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA), questioned why Cable Bahamas did not contact her to find out why it had not received two months’ worth of payments prior to cutting her TV service off.
The letter, published as part of URCA’s decision not to approve Cable Bahamas’ application for an $8 per month increase in the price of its residential SuperBasic TV service, disclosed that the cheques Dame Ivy submitted as payment in July and August 2012 were not cashed by the BISX-listed communications provider.
The ex-Governor General criticised Cable Bahamas for failing to compensate consumers for poor or interrupted services, and said trying to call its Customer Helpline was “a wasteful exercise” because callers were often stuck in queues for 45-60 minutes.
Dame Ivy contrasted the zealous attitude that Cable Bahamas and other utility firms displayed in trying to sell customers new services with how they responded to complaints and queries, and urged that their monopolies not hold consumer hostage.
“I understand why young, educated Bahamians who have lived abroad become disheartened when they return to the Bahamas,” Dame Ivy told URCA.
“Of course, Cable Bahamas is my addressee now, but add it to telephone and electricity services, and it is not difficult to buy into their denunciation of the utility services as a whole.
“It is difficult for me to believe that we, grasping at full Bahamianisation, continue to fall so short.”
Dame Ivy’s status as a former Cabinet Minister and Governor General gives extra weight to her comments, which added to those of numerous Bahamians who complained to URCA about alleged customer service problems with Cable Bahamas.
In her letter, Dame Ivy said she and her late husband had been subscribers to Cable Bahamas since its cable TV services launched in the Bahamas in 1994.
She added that she issued cheques payable to the BISX-listed company as payment for its services on the 20th of every month, and had written one to cover both July and August 2012 because she was going to be outside the Bahamas for those months.
Her police security officers, as they had done for seven years, delivered the cheque to Cable Bahamas, but the company never presented it to the bank for payment.
“Imagine my shock when, a week ago [September 2012] I realised that my service had been disconnected for non-payment,” Dame Ivy told URCA.
“Having a record of continuous (even early) payment of our account, and noting a most obvious and startling change, would it not have been sensible and courteous for Cable Bahamas to undertake inquiry of a long-standing, hopefully valued, customer.”
Pointing out that cable TV services were often “interrupted for all sorts of excuses”, Dame Ivy said Cable Bahamas had never reduced their bill as a means of compensation.
As for reporting complaints to Cable Bahamas, Dame Ivy said: “Trying to reach the office is a wasteful exercise. Being number 17 on the line could result in a 45-60 minute wait for a breathing body to acknowledge a caller.
“Surely in this day and age a company that crows about its profitability can afford to employ enough trainable people to man the phone lines which, no doubt, are so severely jammed because of poor experiences of so many clients.”
Dame Ivy urged URCA to mandate that Cable Bahamas and the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) repatriate a percentage of their profits to their customers as compensation for “inconvenience, loss, frustration and anxiety” caused the previous year.
She also suggested that the communications industry regulator install a system that allowed subscribers to inform it when their service was down, given that Bahamian utility companies frequently did not answer.
“Like my fellow Bahamians, I look forward to the time - hopefully soon - when purveyors of basic services pay more attention to the people they know how to contact when they want to sell a new service, but make little effort to do so otherwise,” Dame Ivy wrote.
“The fact that the utilities enjoy monopolies cannot continue to be used as a weapon against a whole nation of dependent souls.”
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