Latin America
Related: About this forumState telco Hondutel should be privatized - former director
State telco Hondutel should be privatized - former director
By Business News Americas staff reporter - Monday, June 23, 2014
Former Hondutel director Alonso Valenzuela said the Honduran state telecom provider's recent layoffs are not enough for it to gain financial stability.
Hondutel needs heavy private investment to be able to compete in the mobile telephony segment, Valenzuela said in an interview with local daily El Heraldo.
If Hondutel were a private company, it could increase its sales volume and the government would benefit through sales and income taxes, Valenzuela said.
In its current state, Hondutel is unable to compete with the country's other operators. The provider has only 146,000 subscribers, while Claro and Tigo have a combined 7mn.
More:
http://www.bnamericas.com/news/privatization/state-telco-hondutel-should-be-privatized-former-director
Judi Lynn
(160,076 posts)to Honduras private industry for deeply personal ways. He has had very deep concerns regarding Honduran people's right to self-government. Bless his heart.
Here is a completely useful article placed here by an amazing activist many of us respected from the very first post: Magbana.
KOZLOFF: "The Politics of Destabilization - McCain and Honduras" -Telecoms, etc.
Bastille Day Edition
July 14, 2009
The Politics of Destabilization
McCain and Honduras
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF
A Behind the recent pressure campaign against the Zelaya regime in Honduras lurks a shadowy world of right wing foundations, lobbying groups and anti-Chávez figures. This tangled web of Washington, D.C. interests includes the Arcadia Foundation, a mysterious figure named Robert Carmona Borjas and former State Department official Otto Reich. What do all these organizations and characters have in common? In one way or another they are all tied back to Arizona Senator John McCain.
According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, it was Venezuelan lawyer Robert-Carmona Borjas who helped to draft some of the infamous anti-constitutional Carmona decrees after Hugo Chávez was overthrown in the April, 2002 military coup. After Chávez was returned to power Carmona Borjas fled to the United States where he found his calling as a leading anti-Chávez figure and, more recently, as a fierce critic of the Zelaya regime in Honduras.
In 2004, Carmona-Borjas was listed as part time faculty at the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at George Washington University and as recently as November, 2008 set up a class entitled Political Management in Latin America offered through the Graduate School of Political Management. According to the GW Hatchet, the local student paper, the class had a roster of right wing, free-trade boosting speakers including Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich, Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan politician, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.
According to the Hatchet, the class sought to analyze Latin American governments that have failed social policies, which have led to anti-system political movements. Many Latin American countries have forged ties with re-emerging powers and countries in pursuit of nuclear capability, Carmona-Borjas said, ties that can endanger the interests of the United States in the region.
But it was not part time teaching in D.C. which distinguished Carmona Borjas as a political player. No, it was the Venezuelans work as Vice President of the mysterious anti-corruption and watchdog outfit known as Arcadia Foundation which really set him apart. From his perch at Arcadia, Carmona-Borjas launched anti-corruption attacks against Honduras and the Zelaya regime. In particular he conducted a massive public relations campaign against Hondutel, the state telecommunications company in Honduras. In article after article published in the Central American media, Borjas-Carmona accused Hondutel of corruption.
The Right Wing Telecom Connection
The Venezuelan right winger was joined in his criticisms by Otto Reich, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, State Department official under Bush, and foreign policy adviser for McCains 2008 campaign. Reich was linked to figures in the 2002 coup against Chávez and has worked as a corporate lobbyist for such firms as telecom giant AT&T. His firm, Otto Reich Associates, advises U.S. corporations in Latin America and promotes the American free trade agenda by fighting privatization.
More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x18910