A return to the bad old days?

 COMMUNICATIONS company bemobile was on the verge of opening up new horizons through the transformation of its network and services when its joint venture collapsed. 

It appears a spat over governance issues sank the deal when differences could not be bridged.

Monday’s announcement by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill came as a shock.

With bemobile losing market share in the lucrative mobile phone and internet sector, the deal with Fiji-based interests was seen by many as a chance for some real competition that would benefit the consumer in terms of reduced costs and value for money. And better service too.

The Prime Minister said that legal issues that could not be amicably resolved had unravelled the deal.

That forced the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) and Vodafone Fiji to pull out of the multimillion Kina agreement that would recapitalise bemobile.

One must wonder at the speed the deal fell apart after being signed a mere four months ago.

What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

There has been a passing reference to a tussle over infrastructure rollout but the silence  from both sides of the deal  since O’Neill’s announcement points to deeper fissures between the parties.

Were there other ground rules and other disagreements also contributing to the collapse of this deal?

Was there also a falling out over who would actually pull the strings in the day to day running of the liaison.

Did they have fallout on the network and business plans? Was there disagreement over selection of suppliers? 

Or was it just a misunderstanding that led to this broken partnership?

The Independent Public Business Corporation (IPBC) needs to come out clearly and tell the people of Papua New Guinea what really went wrong. 

It must not attempt to camouflage the whole issue behind “legal disagreements”. 

It would also be interesting to hear what FNPF and Vodafone Fiji have to say.

Did they feel undermined by the whole process? 

What ticked them off enough to throw in the towel and walk away? 

The people of PNG deserve to hear both sides of the story in full before drawing their own conclusion.  

The Government now looks at funding bemobile expansion plans by itself or with Telikom.

The Minister responsible for IPBC, Ben Micah, indicated there was no chance that the deal would be revived.

PNG, he said would have to look at life beyond Vodafone Fiji.

“This effectively means that the State will have to look at the investment strategy for bemobile going forward, through other options.”

A bold statement considering it was a deal worth K88 million.

Now IPBC will have to fund bemobile on its own and one has to ask how many more millions is it going to have to sink into a leaking, rudderless vessel.

Where is it going to draw that money from?

The IPBC needs to explain just how this version of bemobile is going to be managed. Has the Government not contradicted itself?

When it took office, it said  it was looking at more public-private partnerships rather than continuing to put large amounts of taxpayers’ money into state-owned enterprises.

The underlying questions of transparent governance will come up again because executive appointments will once more be controlled by politicians since IPBC/Telikom will run bemobile.

It is the very thing that held Telikom PNG back and forced bemobile into a public-private operating mode. 

The joint venture with Hong Kong investment company GEMS in 2008 came about because under Telikom PNG, bemobile, burdened by bureaucratic red tape, could not effectively compete against Digicel.

GEMS had a go at managing bemobile and failed. It returned to PNG control and that too failed.

With the pullout of the Fiji interests, it appears the Government is being forced to embrace a failed business model.

Isn’t the Government doing the same thing all over again knowing the results will still be the same? 

The people of Papua New Guinea, who are paying through their noses for what is an essential service, are not looking for a repeat performance.