RSS« Yes, we're a public company but no, we won't give you our Annual Report | Encore Ideology over practicality: Clumsy Communciations »
August 05, 2003
CPA Encore: Clumsy Ideology in Cell License Tenders
My frustration with this half-assed reconstruction effort continues.
Having finished a series of correspodence with a potential partner in investing in Iraqi telecomms, I find myself wondering if the CPA-I people are doing their homework or even thinking before creating their tenders.
Now this has all been revised as of this morning (nice work guys, but still not there).
I won't go into the gory detials - quite enough of that to be had at http://www.cpa-iraq.org/ministries/mobile_phones.html - however they've structured the bid so as to effectively exclude most non-US competition and even partnering / JVs with local operators. The key issue is the State participation clause, set at the ridiculously low 5 then 10% as of this morning, in regards to ownership in any single company or company in a consortium.
Fucking morons, a good number of the serious operators have participation well above the 10% even and fuck, what the fuck is the care in this regard? The local operators, such as Batelco which had a wildcat operation up and running in Baghdad before CPA shut it down (yes, we'll let you spend a few mill in a fucked up environment, let you run for a while and THEN decide ...ooooh this might undercut our ever receding plans to have cell ops up under our own regime.) have experience in the environment, know the language, etc. etc. Now they're pretty much excluded.
Why, becuase some assholes in the CPA-I have their fucking free market ideology up their fucking arses and can't shit straight. Exclude state owned or firms with majority state ownership from having controlling stakes in a consortium or bid, fine, but this bumblefuck exclusion of state ownership pretty much puts us in the hands of either 2nd tier regional fuck ups (or indebted crap shoots like Orascom) and American firms with no experience working in the Arab region, and not much with the GMS systems. And a few Euro firms. So, we've excluded France Telecom, which although I am no fan of it, has substantial experience running telephone networks in the region (e.g. neighoring Jordan, in Morocco, etc.) and putting up with and indeed running well with the regional environment. Just like that.
Brilliant, fucking brilliant work. All in the name of ideology over pragmatic practicality. I see great things in the future for the CPA-I, great things.
I wait for revisions.
Posted by The Lounsbury at August 5, 2003 10:19 AM
Filed Under:
Jan-Dec 2003
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.aqoul.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1511
