The Turnbull administration and the V.I. Telephone Corp. announced Wednesday that they have given themselves a month to come up with a plan to make the government’s phone system more efficient less costly.
The government's debt to Vitelco is substantial and long overdue – as is true with many vendors. While neither party has disclosed how much is owed, a Government House release Wednesday said an "agreement would be struck to address the pending ‘aged accounts.’"
"The government has made a partial payment from the recent ($300 million) bond proceeds to Vitelco in the effort to reconcile some of those charges," the release stated.
Because of the large debt, the two parties agreed to a task force to find ways to "modernize, maximize and make more efficient and cost-effective" the government’s phone service.
Juel Molloy, Turnbull's chief of staff, and Samuel Ebbesen, Vitelco president and CEO, met Wednesday and announced that they had turned over the telephone task force to Paulette Rabsatt, the governor’s deputy assistant, and Cheryl Francis, financial officer for Vitelco.
The duo has until April 17 to submit their findings to Molloy and Ebbesen.
Ebbesen said the company will suggest ways to fix how it bills the government to better control the management of information systems and to simplify and make more efficient the overall telephone system.
"This government can no longer afford the luxury of paying for an elaborate telephone system with unnecessary features," Molloy said. "We must come to the reality that we have been spending beyond our means – and that must be corrected."
Included in the "no frills" system would be upgrades at schools and libraries to maximize Internet services and data networking, Ebbesen said.
