Barrow lambastes G.O.B. on B.T.L. sale
After a succession of press releases demanding that government disclose the contents of its agreement with Innovative Communication Corporation for the sale of B.T.L., and a series of allegations that special concessions and guarantees were offered to the buyer, the United Democratic Party has upped the ante. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the U.D.P. says thanks to sources with access to the top secret document, they are quote “absolutely certain” that government has effectively granted I.C.C. full rights to raise phone rates to ensure a fifteen percent minimum rate of return on their investment. This morning, Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow told News 5 that government’s silence has only confirmed their position.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“If government were to answer our call and make the agreement public, then we could not have any argument. I think government will not do that because government knows that what we are saying is true.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
And what the United Democratic Party is saying is that the Government of Belize has guaranteed Innovative Communication Corporation a fifteen percent rate of return, after taxes.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“The P.U.C. will be obliged to allow B.T.L. to charge whatever rates they can justify in order to arrive at this fifteen percent rate of return, so what it means for the Belizean consumer is that it is next to certain that rates will go up in order to ensure I.C.C. this fifteen percent return on its investment.”
According to Barrow, it’s a sad situation that resulted from the sticky subject of interconnection.
Dean Barrow
“The agreement does not actually talk about any specific figure, but what it says is that there is going to be interconnection on the basis of a formula which will allow B.T.L. to recover for the provision of the interconnection to Intelco its costs, its fixed costs, or carrying costs, for the service as well an amount for profit. As I understand it, government said to us that this whole thing was caused because there was not initially an agreement between the old B.T.L. and Intelco on interconnection.
“The P.U.C. has said publicly that it prescribed interconnection rates and sent those rates for publication to the government in a statutory instrument and the government sat on that. It is well known that the P.U.C. had fixed interconnection at four cents, talking about domestic calls. And B.T.L. was saying no, because our carrying costs plus the mark up that we feel we ought to be allowed, should mean that the interconnection ought to be fixed nineteen cents. Now as I said, the current agreement does actually set a figure, but it does endorse what the old B.T.L. was holding out for from the start.”
Janelle Chanona
“Now, from day one, the United Democratic Party has objected to the sale of B.T.L. and has even gone so far as to say that any part of the agreement that you don’t like, you’ll change, if or when you get into power. Can you see that as a scaring off foreign investment?”
Dean Barrow
“We are on record as being welcoming of foreign investment on the right terms. But any particular deal that is against the interest of the Belizean people we must fight against. And this deal, in our view, is so terribly against the interest of the Belizean people that we are compelled to oppose it to the very last, and that is precisely what we are doing. We are saying that first of all, there was never any need for B.T.L. to move out of majority local control, so from the start when fifty-two percent were sold to Carlisle, we were against it. We had privatised B.T.L., we were the initiators of the privatisation, but we always insisted–and that’s why now there’s this difficulty with the current articles of association because we had tried to make it such that it would be next to impossible for majority control to pass out of the hands of locals.”
Janelle Chanona
“On Tuesday, Mr. Prosser told us on our newscast that he would be willing to sit down with the Opposition and discuss any part of the agreement. Would you be willing to meet with Mr. Prosser?”
Dean Barrow
“We would be happy to meet with Mr. Prosser and to see the agreement. I mean, we, The Opposition, is not an ogre. We are fighting against this because we are convinced that it is not in the interest of the Belizean people. But if Mr. Prosser can show us where we are wrong, we would be more than happy to apologize. I don’t see how that can ever happen in light what I know to be some of the terms and conditions of the agreement. I don’t see how that can happen in light of the fact that, as I said, that the whole thing has been mishandled. How can the government select Mr. Prosser without giving anybody else a chance to bid for B.T.L.? But still, we have a responsibility if Mr. Prosser does in fact issue that sort of invitation to accept it and to sit with him.”
The United Democratic Party is also calling on Michael Ashcroft and B.T.L.’s board of directors to block the transfer of the shares to I.C.C. and is asking the remaining shareholders to take them to court if they don’t.
