MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Garfield Sinclair, managing director of full-service telecommunications provider LIME, says that the frequency of copper cable theft continues to stifle its expansion efforts, even with the recent acquisition of Columbus Communications (Flow) and Dekal Wireless to broaden its reach.

Addressing a Manchester Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet at the Golf View Hotel on the weekend, Sinclair said that LIME has lost more than $400 million over the past 12 years due to copper cable, equipment theft and vandalism.

Sinclair noted, too, that there has been “untold amounts” of loss in business and essential services productivity, and highlighted Central Jamaica as one of the problem areas.

“More recently, we’ve been experiencing a sharp rise in the incidence of cable theft, mainly in parts of where Northern Manchester meets Clarendon. Schools, police stations, health facilities, business and residential customers have all been badly affected by these more frequent and unwarranted disruptions and it can’t stop fast enough for us,” he said.

Sinclair, who has been at the helm of the telecoms company since October 2010, is counting on the enactment of dedicated legislation to create stiffer penalties for telecommunications equipment theft and vandalism — for which he says Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Phillip Paulwell and Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Anthony Hylton have “given the nod” in public statements on the issue.

“I urge our legislators to act extremely quickly on this matter. This is an urgent matter with potentially very serious public safety and national security implications,” he said.

For the challenges with copper cable theft in Manchester, Sinclair said that LIME has reached out to the Manchester Parish Council for any support that it can provide and extended the invitation to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce at the function.

Still encouraged by the capacity and advantages, in terms of reach in rural areas made possible by the acquisitions, particularly of Dekal Wireless, he described it as “a match made in heaven”.

Sinclair said that Manchester has a “good mix of economic drivers” that were not being fully optimised, especially from a technology standpoint, because of previous inhibitors such as the cost of rolling out the cables required to deepen the penetration of high-speed Internet service in rural communities.

He distanced LIME from customer complaints about the current services of Columbus Communications, saying that although the merger is announced, it is not yet finalised.

“There were some conditions precedent that have to be concluded before that merger can actually be final. One of them was getting regulatory approval in four key islands –Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Antigua… We got our approval here in Jamaica fairly speedily. We have yet to receive that approval in Trinidad or Barbados, but we’ve gotten approval in Antigua as well. If you are having any service issues at all with Flow or Columbus, it is definitely not our fault… yet anyway,” said Sinclair.