Digicel is selling its Pacific operations to concentrate on the Caribbean but in its biggest market in the region – Haiti – trouble brews.

A fuel shortage, which is close to bringing the Caribbean country to its knees, also has the telecomms operator reeling.

Commenting on the situation, Digicel Haiti Chairman Maarten Boute said: “With an unreliable and extremely limited electrical grid, all services and institutions that keep the country running — from banks to businesses and hospitals to communications providers like Digicel — get their power from generators which rely on fuel to function. Without fuel, everything shuts down. Some businesses have even warned that they may halt operations because of a lack of fuel.”

Boute added: “We currently have around 25 per cent of our cell sites off air due to the lack of fuel and that means a couple hundred thousand customers are without service.”

The outage has affected 200,000 mainly rural users of the company’s services. Digicel has approximately 4.5 million customers in Haiti.

“Our efforts are concentrated on rescuing refuelling cell sites in Port-au-Prince and other key locations to keep people connected and on doing everything we can to ensure the safety of our staff and their families.”

In the difficult situation, people have turned to stealing what limited fuel is available. Digicel, however, says while the problem is a perennial one, the situation has not worsened by the fuel shortage.

“As always in these difficult situations, we have seen an increase in people using our services as they check on their families and friends — and we have seen a particular uptick in usage of our MonCash mobile wallet as people value it as a safe way to transact,” added Boute.

Reuters — one of the world’s largest news agencies, quoting Haiti’s foreign aid bureau, BMPAD, which oversees fuel procurement — said on Tuesday that the country had 150,000 barrels of diesel and 50,000 barrels of gasoline with another 50,000 barrels scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. It went on to add that 100,000 barrels of diesel and gasoline would supply Haiti’s fuel needs for five to seven days, citing Marc Andre Deriphonse, head of the country’s service station owners’ association, ANAPROSS.

The fuel shortage the country now faces has been caused by gangs blocking the ports that hold fuel storage, choking off the supply. They have been demanding the resignation of the country’s prime minister, Ariel Henry. The situation has also impacted hospitals, which largely depend on diesel generators for power because of frequent blackouts. Digicel has helped in this regard, donating fuel to a hospital for patients on the paediatric and COVID-19 wards on Wednesday.

The Jamaica Observer has learnt that fuel was delivered by strapping containers on bikes. Reuters also reported that motorcycle drivers have been strapping one-gallon containers to their bikes in the hopes of filling them with fuel sold on the black market. It said a gallon of gasoline on the street can now fetch US$20, compared with typical filling station prices of around US$2.