Symbiote Investments says that the report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday by the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) has not raised any new material that should cause the Government to take away its telecommunication licences.

“He has merely given his own interpretation of facts that were disclosed by the applicant, and known to the regulators and the minister when the decisions were taken,” Symbiote, which trades as Caricel, said in a statement Wednesday.

Symbiote/Caricel, which was responding to some adverse findings and recommendations produced by Contractor General Dirk Harrison in his 125-page report, also said that during the process it was never contacted by the OCG for its response to the allegations included in the report.

Symbiote aso stated that the pattern of objections and resistance by the Spectrum Management Authority (SMA) “is the only evidence of ‘misconduct’ that has been uncovered by the OCG’s investigations.

“We are surprised by the publication of adverse findings before the company was given an opportunity to be heard by the proper authorities,” Symbiote said.

Among the charges made by Harrison’s office was that the company breached Section 63 of the Telecommunications Act and Section 5 of the Radio and Telegraph Control Act, by using a spectrum without the prescribed licence.

Harrison recommended that current minister of technology Dr Andrew Wheatley exercise the discretion afforded to him by Section 13 of the Telecommunications Act and not sign or issue the Domestic Mobile Spectrum Licence (DMSL) to Symbiote Investments, which was approved by his predecessor, Phillip Paulwell, in February.

The Contractor General also recommended that, in the circumstances, the Mobile Carrier and Service Provider Licences which had been issued to Symbiote Investments by the previous Government, should be withdrawn.

But, Symbiote has suggested that the OCG’s actions were part of a campaign to destabilise the company:

“We are convinced that this is part of a wider attempt to destabilise our business and render Caricel incapable of competing against the two existing foreign companies, FLOW and Digicel, in the telecom business sector,” Symbiote wrote.

“Any inquiry would reveal that no other applicant has been subjected to this kind of prolonged and sustained scrutiny that this local company has endured. That, in itself, a matter for investigation,” the company’s statement said.