Musa lashes BTL for high rates

While in his speech of acceptance Prime Minister Said Musa expressed his great appreciation to Janus, he fired some uncharacteristically harsh words at the company which mans the toll booths on Belize’s information superhighway. For BTL, said the P.M., it’s time to get on with the program.

Prime Minister Said Musa

“Well I think the time has come for us to have some plain speaking and we have a very ambitious program: to wire all our school to make sure our young people get on to the internet, the information superhighway as they say. It’s an ambitious goal but we are serious about carrying it out and we need the cooperation of BTL in order to achieve this objective. I did sound the note of concern today that we do not seem to be getting the full cooperation of BTL in bringing down internet rates as well as in expanding the telephone services to the villages in our country. ”

“There are villages that now have electricity but they don’t have the telephone service. And we do need the service because it is not fair for a child in say Pueblo Viejo in the Toledo District, that because he or she happens to go to school in that village, she cannot get access to a computer and because there is no telephone service. That is just one example because there are many villages still without a telephone service and there are many other villages with only one community telephone. So we are saying, BTL get with the program. Lets continue this expansion program, it is business for you, it is a wider market for you, you enjoy a monopoly today, but you should have a greater obligation because of this monopoly, to ensure that you deliver the service to our people.”

The BTL telecommunication monopoly runs out in 2002. The computer donation by the Janus Foundation is valued at $50,000.