ICE Assures Self Proclaimed Rate
Increase Goes Into Effect Tomorrow
Although the Poder Ejecutivo (government) is not pleased with the
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) plan to go ahead
increasing telephone rates, the higher rates will be a reality
tomorrow, Friday, 30 January.
Unless there is a last minute change, the publication of the rate
increase in the official government publication, La Gaceta, is
scheduled for tomorrow, which allows ICE the legality to raise the
rates.
The increase is expected to go ahead notwithstanding that on Tuesday
Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, his brother and ministro de la
Presidencia, Rodrigo Arias and the regulador general, Fernarndo
Herrero, met with ICE president, Pedro Pablo Quirós, to discuss the
state telecom's rate increase.
At the meeting Quirós defended his institution's right under the new
Ley General de Telecomunicaciones and the creation of the
Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel) to raise its rates
without the approval of the Autoridad Reguladora, as had been done
in the past.
The ICE president argues that the new telecommunications law that
broke up the 80 year ICE monopoly on telecommunications and allows
competitors to enter the market, is now the authority and since its
creation is incomplete and all the regulations have yet to be
decreed, ICE, as a major operator retains the right to determine its
rates.
Quirós is adamant that the new rates will go in effect.
For their part, the Asociación Nacional de Trabajadores y Técnicos
en Energía y Telecomunicaciones (Anttec), one of several ICE workers
unions, said that this is just one of the many things to come as a
result of the approval of the Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) - free
trade agreement with the United States.
The Anttec and other ICE workers unions were opposed to the approval
of the TLC from the beginning. |
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