Intelco: late but soon come
For a brief moment in time, the company looked like a knight in shining armour, ready to breech the walls of Belize’s high priced monopoly telecom market, rescue the beleaguered Belizean consumer and carry her off into a fairyland of low cost international calls, high speed instant internet and unlimited rollover minutes on your digital cellular phone. Then reality set in…accompanied by allegations of political cronyism, financial sleight of hand and technological indecision. Today, a week after competitor B.T.L. launched its highly touted Digicell system, International Telecommunications Limited, better known as INTELCO, updated the press on the status of its own plans for 2003.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
New but not exactly on time…this morning, Intelco announced that the earliest it will begin service to the Belizean public is in March 2003.
Juan McKenzie, C.E.O., Intelco
“And I want to send a clear message to my friends, if we have to put our house and bring more people and have them working twenty-four hours, even if we delay, we are going to have competition in this country.”
Big talking from Intelco C.E.O., Juan McKenzie, who today, went so far as to suggest financial saboteurs had tried to destroy his credit at the bank.
Juan McKenzie
“You know what you have to come and talk to us because somebody send us a fax here so with a kind a thing that we no understand. And it was announcement that Intelco this and that.”
“By the way, message for the guy, the bank approved the thing…the fax did not work.”
To an audience of Intelco employees and members of the Belizean press corps, McKenzie named the three things on his Christmas list.
Juan McKenzie
“We are late, but we will be here soon. We are talking about three or four months. We are trying to reduce it, bring in more people. The second thing that I would like to ask the press that work with the politician too, good politicians, but try to keep the company out of the politics, my good friend. The third thing is we can say today that the price is three times more minutes than the basic that we have today and that’s important I think for the Belizeans.”
According to Director of Operations Ivan Tesucum, much of the last year was spent in negotiations with the Public Utilities Commission.
Ivan Tesucum, Director of Operations, Intelco
“The license was a contributing factor also with regards with the manufacturing equipment, working out the final agreements with our equipment suppliers that created and helped in this delay, therefore we decided today that we are going to update the country of Belize on how we are proceeding and give them a tentative timeline of when we are going to come out.”
And what they’re coming out with is the G.S.M. Infinitum, designed to service approximately eighty percent of the country with hi-tech telecommunications and public friendly features like roll over minutes and cash back programs.
The new company is being tip lipped about the exact price tag of their investment, but contend they are spending far less than the competition, somewhere in the neighbourhood of twenty-eight million dollars, for the same G.S.M. service.
Ivan Tesucum
“It’s really the negotiations that we’ve had with the different equipment suppliers, doing a thorough analysis, doing the background check on all the equipment we need and having our engineers work with their engineers to make sure that whatever is not need, we take out, and what is necessary, we put into the system so we have the best price along with the negotiation and make sure we can offer all the services that are being offered now, plus more services to the Belizean people.”
But people get tired of waiting.
Juan McKenzie
“I announce that I will be three times lower. What the people will do? Like how the same phone that you have today can be used in our service or our phone in their service, a great amount of people will say, three times less, roll over, better price and package, I myself will buy a prepaid and wait.”
“I prefer them to wait, but anyhow, I don’t want to tell the people to wait and don’t do nothing. I’m saying get creative. Belizeans is very good at being creative., believe me. I see things here that I no see in no other part of the world.”
As for the rumours of Intelco’s shaky financial status, McKenzie says they just ain’t true.
Juan McKenzie
“Every time I leave the country they seh we sell the company, and it’s those kinds of things. In terms of financial, the company is stable. I will not tell you that we did not go and look for money, we have to go to look for money. That’s the way you put up a business. Show me somebody, not in Belize, in the rest of the world that take all his money out of his pocket and put up a business. Don’t make sense.”
According to McKenzie, he owns ten percent of the company, while Chairman of the Board Glenn Godfrey is majority shareholder. The other investors in the company are Panamanian Dr. Alfredo Oranges and Belizean businessman Eugene Zabaneh.
