Consumers to Pay Extra Costs

John Briceño

While he stayed away from speaking on behalf of Speednet Communications, the parent company of Smart, Briceño says that the additional cost will be borne by consumers of data, potentially locking out a poorer class of citizens who won’t be able to afford the service.  This, he says, flies in the face of efforts by service providers to slash the cost of data bundles considerably, as a result of direct competition.

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition

“I can’t speak about Speednet because I don’t know.  I can speak about Centaur, my brother and I, we own the company.  Basically, like in everything, when they add the tax, you pass it on to the consumers.  So really, who’s going to be getting the brunt of it is going to be the consumers.  Unfortunately it could make it inaccessible to a few people that and these people that really need it.  But thanks to Dean Barrow and the U.D.P., they are bankrupt of ideas and just trying to find how they could squeeze out more tax dollars out of the Belizean people.”