The move, the company said in a statement yesterday, was to improve efficiency, allowing Centennial to expand its network and continue operations.

"This action is unfortunate and regrettable, however, necessary to allow (Centennial Jamaica) to expand its network and continue to offer the quality service its customers have come to expect," said the terse company statement.

Neither Centennial's CEO, Jim Beneda, nor other senior officials could be contacted to comment on the late Friday afternoon statement, including how many of the company's 232 staff will be cut.

However, a source close to the company told the Observer late last night that Centennial had sent home all its customer care staff, leaving that arm of the operations to be run by six part-time workers.

"The information I have is that they are cutting up to 90 per cent of the staff," the source said. "That would include finance, marketing and operations."

Yesterday's announcement came after last month's confirmation by Michael J Small, the CEO of Centennial Digital, the US parent company, that it would reduce its 51 per cent stake in the Jamaica operation.

"We decided it was appropriate to write down our interests in Jamaica because our vendors experienced difficulties building out the network at the speed that we had planned, which caused us to re-assess the value of that operation," Small said.

He denied, however, that Centennial would sell its entire stake in the Jamaican business, as had earlier been suggested by Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell.

Centennial's partner in Jamaica is another US firm, Oceanic Digital, which in late 1999 paid the Jamaican Government US$45 million for a licence to operate a cellular telephone service. Oceanic later sold 51 per cent of the operation of Centennial.

However, Centennial Jamaica took a long time to roll out its service, coming almost a year after Irish-owned Digicel, which, like Cable & Wireless Jamaica, has about 400,000 subscribers. Centennial, which provides service only in Kingston and St Andrew, and St Catherine, has under 10,000 subscribers.

The slow build-out of its Jamaica network has meant that Centennial Jamaica has not generated the cash flows to carry the business, which has been compounded by the financial difficulty of its parent company.

The NASDAQ-listed Centennial America, which carries debt of about US$1.8 billion, has been bruised by the "dotcom" meltdown, and earlier this year the rating agency, Standard and Poor's downgraded the quality of Centennial's paper.

While, in the circumstances, the staff cut would not be unexpected, it contrasts sharply to the mood six months ago, as Beneda was talking about a doubling of staff by next year.

"I have to tell you that my team, if it's representative of the people of Jamaica, is fantastic," Beneda said at the time.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20020823T210000-0500_30875_OBS_CENTENNIAL_CUTS_JOBS.asp