AGO asked to probe MTC

The chair of the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications yesterday urged MTC to suspend imposition of toll fees for 411 calls while he seeks an investigation from the Attorney General’s Office.

Rep. Rosiky F. Camacho made the plea during a meeting with company executives, led by General Manager David Rogers, who explained to House members their decision to charge a 25 cent fee for each call using its directory assistance service.

MTC, the lone domestic phone service provider in the Commonwealth, maintained the fee is necessary to discourage the people in calling 411 to ask for phone numbers as the company has incurred huge costs in terms of paying overtime to operators for the 24-hour service.

The new regulation took effect last Monday, but three free calls will be allowed per month. After that, each 411 call will cost users 25 cents. MTC also introduced a new service called the Directory Assistance Call Completion.

As part of the franchise agreement granted to the telephone company, the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation approved the fee on May 3, 2000 after MTC officials submitted the application in March.

But Mr. Camacho questioned CUC’s authority to allow the company or for MTC to ask its permission, as he noted that there is no provision of such arrangement in the agreement.

Concerned that there maybe irregularities, he said he would ask the AGO to look into the situation and find out whether there is legal basis for the decision.

At the same time, the lawmaker vowed to push for the passage of a proposed regulatory commission that will oversee operations of telecommunication firms in the CNMI and remove them from CUC’s broad powers.

“I hope MTC will suspend the imposition of the fee while we are looking into the problem,” Mr. Camacho told in an interview. “A lot of our people are still suffering because of the economic difficulties we are still experiencing.”

He disclosed though MTC officials had informed them that because of the toll fee, 411 calls received by phone operators have gone down since May 1.

On an average, operators received as much as 4,500 calls per day or about 130,000 calls every month because of the fact that the 411 service was free of charge.

Mr. Camacho early this week wrote to Mr. Rogers protesting the company’s decision, citing as reasons the inaccurate phone book provided by MTC to its subscribers as well as the needs of elderly people for directory assistance.