The URCA controversy

Wed, Dec 28th 2011, 11:33 AM

After alleged 'attacks' on him in the media, CEO of the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) Usman Saadat resigned from the regulatory agency, URCA chairman Wayne Aranha announced on May 6.
Aranha said Saadat submitted his resignation and URCA's board reluctantly accepted it.  Saadat agreed to stay on at URCA until August 31, 2011.
Aranha revealed months later that more than 30 people applied to fill the position, but no new CEO has yet been announced.
Saadat was a controversial figure, particularly when URCA was considering the sale of a majority interest in the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) to Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC).
Saadat was featured prominently in a series of exclusive investigative articles by The Nassau Guardian questioning CWC's connection to URCA.
Saadat formerly served as CEO of CWC's St. Lucia operation.  He joined URCA (formerly the Public Utilities Commission) in 2009 as its director of policy and regulation (DPR).
He was embroiled in a storm of controversy after The Guardian revealed that, in 2009, he introduced former CWC executive Marsha Lewis to URCA's board.
Lewis soon landed a human resources consultancy contract with the regulator.
In those articles The Guardian also revealed that URCA never advertised the human resources position locally, and that when Saadat applied for the CEO position last year he had to forward his resume to Lewis, his former colleague, for vetting.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has said URCA broke immigration rules.  At a Free National Movement (FNM) rally in March, Ingraham announced that Lewis "won't be coming back to work here in The Bahamas".
Lewis leads LCI Inc. in Barbados and her husband -- up until the time of The Guardian investigation -- still served as a CWC executive.
URCA approved the BTC deal earlier in the year and its chairman maintained that there was never any conflict of interest.
The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) had expressed concern about the fact that a former CWC executive headed URCA at a time when URCA was considering the BTC sale.
"The Progressive Liberal Party finds it most interesting that Mr. Saadat's resume made no mention of his return to the Far East to 'settle down' as noted by him as his main reason for resigning from Cable and Wireless St. Lucia in 2008," the party said in a statement earlier this year.
"The PLP asks how is it that in less than eight months Mr. Saadat, with just 14 years of experience, was selected by the FNM government to become the director of policy and regulation at URCA in The Bahamas and was then instantly promoted to the position of chief executive officer at URCA."
In his statement back in May, Aranha also said, "The board would have wished Mr. Saadat to stay for the length of his tenure, until 2013, given that it has full confidence in the ability, integrity, and leadership of its CEO."
Aranha also said, "However, noting that this is a personal decision, which has been directly influenced by the recent unfortunate and unwarranted personal attacks on him and his family in different media, the board has reluctantly accepted his resignation.
"He has contributed significantly to the development of URCA and the advancement of the regulation of the communications sector in The Bahamas.
"He will be leaving URCA at a critical juncture as it seeks to ensure that the full benefits to be derived from the newly liberalized sector accrue to all Bahamians.  We wish him well in his future endeavours and the board will now focus on engaging a new CEO."
In the statement, Saadat said, "I have enjoyed the challenge of leading various aspects of change -- external and internal -- over the last two years.
"At the time I was appointed as DPR, I then understood my broad mandate as helping to transform the legacy regulator (PUC), implement the new regulatory regime, effectively regulate under the new framework, local capacity building and providing the certainty and predictability in the regulatory regime that is conducive to investment through new operators and via privatization.
"I feel satisfied that I have fulfilled a large part of that mandate.  I want to express my sincere thanks to the board, who [has] backed me through some challenging times recently.
"Finally, I want to thank my colleagues at URCA who have endured major changes but delivered the necessary outputs and outcomes under demanding circumstances."

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian

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