Past President of The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) Ian Neita was part of a panel discussion at The Courtleigh Hotel, speaking on the theft and vandalism affecting the operations of the leading telecoms company Flow. Below is his full address:

We all are disheartened that in 2022 we are still grappling with the issue of copper theft, equipment theft and sabotage.

I worked with FLOW up until 2005 and these were problems then, but they have gotten exponentially worse.

A few unscrupulous individuals are benefiting from these organised criminal activities, while hundreds of thousands of our citizens are negatively affected by this scourge.

As a business support organisation, we at the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce are deeply disturbed by the impact this situation is having on our members and the society at large. As a country we have embarked on a mission to undertake digital transformation, e-commerce, e-learning and emedicine. All are significantly affected when we experience downtime due to theft of lines and equipment.

Many of our members have had to subscribe to two telecoms providers, with one being used as a backup, because of the frequency of outages due to theft. This is a waste of resources and it makes our businesses that much less competitive in regional and international markets, because of this additional cost. Internet downtime for SMEs results in loss of revenue, low productivity and often can mean the difference between making a profit and experiencing a loss in business. When the internet runs your security system, you cannot afford an outage as your safety is immediately compromised and your life and those of your employees or family are placed in danger.

FLOW too, must be extremely frustrated to have to keep repairing the same lines again and again, as well as constantly replacing stolen batteries and fuel, etc. This is a tax on the business and a drain on precious foreign exchange which should be better utilised in expanding capacity and improving service and efficiency.

As debilitating as the theft is to businesses it probably has a bigger impact on education. We witness so many students experiencing downtime in internet especially during COVID. This lost time can hardly be recovered and will likely set us back decades.

The internet is now the life blood of businesses, education health and leisure. It should be treated as a national treasure and guarded with the level of due care and urgency it deserves. The JCC is calling on the authorities to do whatever it takes through legislation, public awareness programmes and enforcement of laws, to eliminate this crime which jeopardises our future. Penalties must fit the crime and the theft of telecom lines and equipment as well as vandalism to equipment are grievious crimes.

JCC stands with FLOW and with you Minister Vaz and your ministry in the fight to remove this organised crime from our society and to free our digital infrastructure to drive productivity, employment and growth.