Utility wires an eyesore, says Symmonds

The sight of overhanging utility wires across the length and breadth of Barbados has been described as “a vulgar eyesore” by Minister of Energy, Business Development and Commerce Kerrie Symmonds during this year’s Estimates debate.

Symmonds, who is also Senior Minister coordinating the productive sector, was speaking from the Well of the House of Assembly last Friday in response to a worry from St Philip South MP and Minister of Public and Private Investment Indar Weir, about the “telecommunication cables that have become a source of growing national concern for Barbadians”.

Weir also said how the telecommunication cables “created an unsightly landscape that distracts from the natural beauty of the country. In addition to the aesthetic impact, these cables pose potential safety hazards where they hang low across roadways and pedestrian ways, creating risks for both vehicular and on-foot traffic.”

He said it was not a good reflection on a country that prides itself on order, infrastructure, resilience, and a high standard of public spaces and that it had become an increasingly vexing issue that warranted urgent attention.

He wanted to know from the ministry’s personnel in the Well what measures were being proposed or implemented to regulate the installation, management, and maintenance of telecommunication cables across Barbados and whether the ministry intends to establish and enforce a comprehensive regulatory framework to address the matter.

Symmonds, however, called on the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) chief executive officer Brian Reece, who was present, to respond.

Reece said though the FTC fell within the ministry, it was not empowered to make the kind of intervention queried by Weir.

Symmonds also in an intervention said he as minister agreed with Weir 100 per cent.

“It is an eyesore . . . . It is not just a question

of optics, as you put it. It is a vulgar eyesore. And all around Barbados, we see these wires hanging and it has been so now for many years. It is also a question of safety. You’re quite right, because I have seen very large trucks . . . pulling down some of these same wires,” Symmonds said.

He said the situation spoke to “a third issue which I think is the professionalism or lack thereof of the service providers, because if we can drive around and see it, I am sure that the . . . . executives in charge of these service-providing companies are also seeing it. And it is an alarming thing to me that this could be going on for so long and there be no intervention.”

When asked again by the minister to speak to the matter, Reece said “The infrastructural positioning of lines, and so on is not something that falls under the mandate of the Fair Trading Commission.”

Weir also brought up other issues of utility providers’ services: patchy mobile connectivity and the changing of service/packages without notifying customers.

(JS)

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