Second ECTEL member to introduce new legislation governing the telecoms sector

St Vincent and the Grenadines has replaced its 22-year-old Telecommunications Act with the new Electronic Communications Act.

The new law aims to strengthen customer service delivery, establish a dispute tribunal to address issues affecting stakeholders, introduce stronger penalties for breach of legislation and promote fairness, transparency and accountability between providers and regulators.

The legislation also seeks to improve conditions and terms for issuance of licences, facilitate production of content and the monetisation of content across internet-based platforms, broaden the scope of telecommunications to include contemporary electronic communications methodologies and preserve an open internet and the concept of neutrality.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is the second Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL) member state to introduce new legislation governing the telecommunications sector. In 2021, St Kitts and Nevis became the first ECTEL member to pass the new law.

In 2009, ECTEL signalled the need for a revision of existing legislation to better address the emergence of new services and challenges within the telecommunications sector. At that time, the sub-regional entity initiated discussions that led to the finalising of a bill in 2019.

In contributing to the debate on the bill recently, Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves explained that the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 eruptions of La Soufriere volcano, and the coming on stream of a World Bank initiative, ‘The Digital Transformation Project’, delayed the passage of the new legislation in the Parliament in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The Electronic Communications Bill was passed recently in the House of Assembly.