The Government of Anguilla and All Island Cable TV signed an agreement on 25th August 1988. Under this agreement All Island Cable Television was allowed to provide television channels through its cable network in Anguilla. This Agreement provided for a fee of $2.70 E.C. per subscriber per month to be paid by All Island Cable TV to the Government of Anguilla. This amount has over the years been included in their charges to the customer.

The agreement also provided for periodic fee increases after June 1st, 1993. No increase on this Government fee was ever implemented since the agreement was signed.
As a part of the 2003 Budget and negotiations with All Island Cable TV, Government imposed an increase to that fee from $2.70 to $5.00 to be paid as of January 1st, 2003. While Government accepted that this increase would be passed on to the customer, as in the past, there was some misunderstanding as to whether the entire fee or just the increase of $2.30 would be passed on.

The matter has now been resolved and Government has apologized for its lack of clarity in this matter since it was only intended that the additional amount of EC$2.30 could be characterized as Government fees and passed through to each customer.

Both Government and Cable TV regret the confusion this issue has caused for Cable TV and its customers. In future bills, subscribers will pay only EC$2.30 as a government tax and Cable TV will continue to absorb and pay EC$2.70 making the total amount EC$5.00 per month that Cable will remit to Government.
Any customer who has paid the EC$5.00 tax by Cable TV will receive an EC$2.70 credit on their bill. Again both parties deeply regret this confusion and the lack of adequate notice to Cable TV consumers.

- Release

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