Fonseca: Govt. wants lower rates too
Taking a stand against BTL’s new charges does not require a political act of courage. In fact, along with opposition to the Guatemala claim, it is probably the only national issue on which every political party, NGO and voter seem to agree. But that doesn’t mean the politicians are off the hook. While demonstrators expressed their outrage at Battlefield Park, News 5’s Janelle Chanona was across the bridge having a chat with Minister of Public Utilities—and one time B.T.L. chairman–Ralph Fonseca.
Ralph Fonseca, Min. of Public Utilities
“Where the government stands is we want lower rates, we must have lower rates, we have promised it to the people and we have not forgotten that. We are very disappointed that B.T.L. continues in this direction. We have tried through normal conversation to find some other solutions, but obviously, they have decided to move forward. Let me just say that this conversation has been going on for three years now, because from the time we got into government, this discussion about re-balancing was on the table and we have, if you like, held it off for this long.”
“I have no doubt that once the P.U.C. can put their rationale together, and their numbers hold up, they will win in court, because the P.U.C. has overarching authority. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have the telecommunications act amended, which would have given them more teeth on the operational side, but as you know, we are in the process of doing that now.”
Janelle Chanona
“Why did it take so long for the P.U.C. to get on track as far as getting a committee together and aligning themselves with the manifesto plan?”
Ralph Fonseca
“Truth of the matter is, it’s a very big job. If you can recall, they spent the first year or so of their coming into being, dealing with the energy side of things because of the fact that the energy company had just been privatised if you like. They also had this situation with the hydro…separating generation from transmission, distribution etc and putting together the framework.”
“We got both the energy side and the water company amended, but because of the real time situation, we never got to the telecommunications situation. And since we had already decided not to issue another monopoly license at the end of 2002, we thought that there would have been a broad conversation, which would have brought the utility into the conversation to find an easier way forward. It didn’t work out that way.”
“The golden share is still owned by the government of Belize. We never gave that up so to speak. We still have our directors on the board. What we did was allow Mr. Ashcroft to be chairperson of the company, hoping that we would have been able to find some solution. But, we could have forced a situation where our director would have chairman, but really we would have been buying very little with that under the circumstances. The actual majority shares of B.T.L. swung around during our first government, where the second offering took place which in effect made government no longer the major shareholder.”
Janelle Chanona
“So that was under the PUP?”
Ralph Fonseca
“Right.”
Janelle Chanona
“Coming on to 2003, the onset of competition has been Mr. Ashcroft’s podium for the re-balanced rates. This deal government has with Data Pro, is there any possibility that this might be history repeating itself as far as…to some people, it might look like kind of a sweetheart deal, now with that company as was the case with Ashcroft and his people.”
Ralph Fonseca
“The company that government has the arrangement with for the schools, if that what’s you’re referring to…”
Janelle Chanona
“This is the Data Pro.”
Ralph Fonseca
“Data Pro is part of the organisation, but they’re not the sole shareholders, there are many people involved, local and foreign. That is a separate contract completely, that has to do with putting the internet as you know into most of the schools in Belize over the next twelve months, hopefully starting January. And also, offering government certain services, so we could cut down on the cost of our telecommunications. That company obviously has ambitions to challenge B.T.L., which will mean that we will have competition and we want to have competition.”
“So I don’t think we can say that it’s history repeating itself because history had to do with a monopoly with a very tight license that was given to them by the UDP government that in effect makes myself, as the Minister today very close to being impotent to deal with the situation directly, and having to use the Public Utilities Commission in order to get something done. So I think by far, far from history repeating itself, we are going to have a chance for real competition in this country for once.”
We attempted to get B.T.L.’s reaction to today’s events, but the company’s head of public relations declined to return our phone calls.
