United Telecom Drops Tariff Hike Plan
Gigi Ugulava, mayor of Tbilisi, said the authorities have negotiated with United Telecom of Georgia not to increase monthly fee for its fixed-line phone service users in the capital city.
The company said late last month that fixed monthly fee for its clients in Tbilisi would increase from GEL 5 to GEL 8 starting from the New Year.
“This ‘New Year present’ is totally incomprehensible and unjustified,” Gigi Ugulava, who is an influential figure within the President Saakashvili’s administration, told journalists on January 6. “Today we had consultations with the company, as well as with the National Communications Commission [GNCC] – the Parliament was also involved in this process – so the decision was made to cancel this decision about increase of monthly subscription fees.”
He also criticized GNCC by saying that that decision about change of tariffs “should be taken more publicly.” “People and also politicians should not be learning about [the fee increase] from television stations,” he said.
The Kazakh bank TuranAlem and its Georgian partners bought the Georgian United Telecom for USD 90 million in 2006. The company says it has up to 400,000 customers throughout Georgia.
According to the GNCC the number of the fixed-line phone service users was 556,000 in 2007.
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