More than $11 million in savings at the Bahamas Telecommunication Company (BTC) will largely contribute to upcoming rate reductions as the company makes a $43 million investment in launching the 4G network throughout the islands.
Chief Executive Geoff Houston said BTC’s procurement team will be looking at cost savings of nothing less than 20 percent.
“Through our buying power from CWC and LIME, we managed to negotiate the new network contracts at significantly better rates and renegotiate existing contracts for supplies at better rates,” he said yesterday. “The last total was $11 million in savings for business [and] that is still a work in progress.”
It’s all a part of getting BTC to be run more efficiently, said Houston, at the same time acknowledging rife bureaucracy at the company. Cutting down the level of such inefficiencies was key for the company as it now prepares to offer one of the first big rate reductions the Bahamian public has ever had. That move is pending regulatory approval by the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA).
