ICT Minister affirms Crown Fibre Holdings' role in UFB

“CFH is built into the structure we are using,” says Amy Adams

ICT Minister Amy Adams has affirmed the role of Crown Fibre Holdings in overseeing the taxpayer’s $1.5 billion investment in the Ultra Fast Broadband network.

Last week the Telecommunications Carriers Forum wrote to the Minister suggesting that Crown Fibre be sidelined or scrapped. The letter was signed by TCF CEO David Stone and written on behalf of all the major telcos. It was leaked to the Dominion Post (see a copy of the letter here).

But Adams told Computerworld yesterday that while the telcos were entitled to put forward their view of the CFH, “at the end of the day we’re put a lot of money in and we’ve put it in as an investor and it’s appropriate that we have our commercial arm there keeping an eye on making sure things are rolling out as we expect them to.”

So CFH is safe for now?

“CFH is built into the structure we are using, there is no doubt they have a role to play, they are the shareholding investment controlling entity on behalf of the crown. I think the issues the TCF were raising were around clarity of that role and that’s something we’ll look into.”

CFH CEO Graham Mitchell declined to comment on the TCF letter.