New telephone directory out |02 March 2006

A spokesman for the company said a limited quantity of the directory was flown in early this week for Cable and Wireless (Seychelles) Limited and Telecom (Seychelles) Limited – the two providers which existed at the time of the signing of the contract – and that the balance of the 37,000 copies are being brought in over the next few weeks by air and by sea, so that all copies should be in the country over the next six weeks.

The spokesman said although the directory states 2004-2006 on its cover in order to honour publishing contractual agreements with the Department of Information Technology and Communications (DITC), “we have taken the opportunity to make it as up-to-date as possible, by including the most recent numbers up to January 2006. So it is truly a 2006 Directory”.

It is to note that the contractual agreement was for the directory to be ready on May 14, 2004.

Explaining the delay in delivery, the spokesman said this was due to the fact that “we were not able to assemble the necessary foreign exchange earlier to meet all the production and printing costs”.

Meanwhile, in view of the delays and the presence of more licensed telecommunications service providers, the DITC has decided that from now on, these providers shall be responsible for making available a telephone directory to their subscribers on an individual or collective basis, noting that it is common international practice that each telecommunications service provider be responsible for the publication and provision of a free telephone directory to its subscribers.
 
On a positive note, the spokesman for Creativeworks has said that the new directory looks great, is much thicker than previous directories, and will have a shelf life of a full year so that advertisers get value for their money.

Noting that the publisher is not paid for producing a telephone directory, the spokesman explained that the final product – in this case 36,700 normal copies plus 300 hard cover copies for phone kiosks – is delivered entirely free to the client, and all costs are funded by advertising revenue, out of which the publisher has to meet all operating and production costs and make a reasonable industry profit.

“We are extremely grateful and indebted to the Department of Information Technology & Communications for its patience in this matter and for allowing a small Seychellois company to persevere to meet its commitment,” the spokesman said.