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From: Bruce De La Cour
Sent: 15 September 2006 11:09 To: Scrutiny
Subject: Selling off of JTGL
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I am writing this e-mail to express my views on the proposed sell-off of Jersey Telecom Group Limited.
I am a Jersey Telecom employee and have been with the company for 22 years. I have paid pension contributions into PECRS since then. If a sell-off is
envisaged Senator Le Sueur hasn't given any assurances as to whether I will keep paying into the PECRS pension scheme or if I can transfer my contributions to another pension scheme. I could actually end up with not having a JT pension when I retire.
Senator Le Sueur seems as though he wants to sell-off JTGL before things like the pension and the terms and conditions of the JT employees have been look into thoroughly.
Senator Le Sueur has said that he would look at protecting the employees at JTGL and if a sell-off did take place then he would ensure that better than TUPE Regulations would be put in place.
How can he guarantee this?
A company, other than the States of Jersey, that buys JTGL will not be too interested in the livelihood of the employees and would be looking at saving money to offset the investment that they have just acquired. The easiest way to do this would be to shed jobs whether there has been an agreement or contract written out between the new company and the States. I find Senator Le Sueur s attitude to this a little worrying. He doesn t seem to grasp that this could happen. By remaining as a States company we, as employees, would be guaranteed a job, certainly not for life, but it would be a guarantee.
We also need to look at whether a company buying JTGL would invest in the telephony infrastructure of the Island.
JT has always had the interests of the Jersey people at the forefront of the Business. We have provided products and services to ensure that Jersey has the best telephony facilities in both the Business and Residential sectors. This, of course, hasn t come cheap but has been budgeted for over many years. If a company buys JTGL they could simply not put the money into keeping these products and services up to date as has been seen in Guernsey when Cable and Wireless bought Guernsey Telecoms from the Guernsey States. The company would want to keep their shareholders happy rather than keeping the interests of the Jersey people at heart. This will have a detrimental effect on the financial industry in the Island. The banks and financial houses in Jersey need their communications to be up to date, as they need them to deal with their own and other financial institutions throughout the world. If they do not have these services they will without doubt leave Jersey and find another place, with up to date telephony communications, in which to do their business.
Another issue that needs looking at is when JTGL has been sold-off and the States no longer are receiving the profits made from JT, what are they going to do to raise the monetary shortfall?
As a Jersey resident selling off JTGL, or any other public utility, will undoubtedly mean that we, as Jersey residents, will find that our Income Tax may well rise to cover the shortfall, or the States could come up with some creative ideas on how to extract the monies from us, as they have with GST. I find the idea that Senator Le Sueur has with the sell-off difficult to understand. The States are receiving profits from JTGL year on year, without any downturn in profit due to competition , so why should they consider selling off JTGL.
The thought of JTGL being sold off in order for the Rainy day Fund to be topped up and then having to pay higher taxes, maybe, just so that there is cash in this strategic monetary fund, should the income of Jersey take a downturn, is something that many an Islander would find hard to comprehend.
If the people of Jersey were asked what they wanted, I am sure that they, as i am, would want a better standard of living, having not to pay higher or hidden taxes and have all the public utilities owned by the States of Jersey, or at least the States having a controlling interest of 51%. In this way the States could themselves regulate how much Islanders would pay for their telephone, gas, water and electricity bills.
I hope that you, as the Scrutiny Panel, will take the comments of a very irate JT employee and an even more irate Jersey resident in hand and include these in the do not sell JTGL box.
Thanking you, Bruce De La Cour.