Hondutel Union Asks for New Boss to Be Non-political
Members of Honduran state telco Hondutel's labor union Sitratel have requested that future heads of the company should concentrate only on the job at hand and not get mixed up in politics, local paper La Tribuna quoted Sitratel's president Orlando Mejía as saying.
In less than two years, Hondutel has seen three different CEOs. The current head of the company, Marcelo Chimirri, is facing charges for abuse of authority and espionage. Chimirri has requested a month's break from the company to deal with his legal problems and newspapers speculate he is unlikely to recover from the scandal and be forced to step down.
Mejía said that employees are concerned with the future of the state telecommunications company, and there are plenty of qualified individuals within Hondutel that could do the job. Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya is ultimately responsible for appointing the new head of Hondutel, according to the report.
Sitratel plans to draw up a list of possible candidates and present them to the president and congress for consideration.
According to telecoms regulator Conatel, Hondutel has 510,000 fixed lines while sub operators, which rent air time from Hondutel, provide another 279,000 lines, totaling 789,000 lines in the country, local paper La Prensa reported.
According to the latest industry study published by Conatel in October 2007, there are 3.6mn mobile phone users in Honduras, reaching 50% of the population.
Posted to the site on 21st November 2007