DUSHANBE, February 16, 2009, Asia-Plus  - Entrepreneurs complain that if a Unified Electronic Communications Center becomes a reality, the government would obtain a virtual monopoly over telecommunications and Internet service.

Speaking to reporters in Dushanbe on February 13, the executive director of the Association of Small and Medium Business of Tajikistan Mikhail Petrushkov said that the Unified Electronic Communications Center project might stifle freedom of speech in the country.

It to be noted that the government intends once again to establish the Unified Electronic Communications Center under the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC).  Implementation of the plan would require all telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) to route their traffic through the center.

“Implementation of the project will mean establishment of a total control over communications,” Petrushkov said, noting that there were also other aspects of that problem.

“The point is that the national operator Tajiktelecom, at which the center is supposed to be established, is currently losing its positions on the domestic telecommunications market,” said Petrushkov, “But if the Unified Communications Center becomes reality, Tajiktelecom would turn into uncompetitive giant on the telecommunications market.”

He further added that the country’s leadership had recently announced a “200 Days of Reforms” campaign and some officials had begun promoting absolutely preposterous projects.

In the meantime, the head of the of the Association of Mobile Telecommunications providers of Tajikistan Ghafour Irkayev noted that some enterprises working in the service sphere had raised the service rates following the global financial crisis.  He noted that the mobile telecommunications providers were not going to change their rates.  “However, the Unified Electronic Communications Center is established, the situation may change,” Irkayev said.

We will recall that for the first time, the government formulated the plan to establish the Unified Communications Center and Information Resource Unit under the Ministry of Communications in February 2006 already but the scheme was not implemented that time.