Employees Trust shares in Telemedia worth over $100 Million

It is two weeks since the government compulsorily acquired ninety four percent of Belize Telemedia through legislation that was passed through the House and Senate with indecent haste on August twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth. The PM said he would re-Belizeanize the company, but in the same statement he said he would sell it off to foreign operators. But what about the Employees Trust? When we caught up with Prime Minister Dean Barrow last week, we put that question to him. And he said, “Well there’s the employees trust. In terms of the employees trust, the objective of the government is to try and arrange it so that in fact, that trust can become operative and so that through that trust, the employees can genuinely own the shares—I think it’s about eleven million dollars worth. But ten million dollars was borrowed from Social Security, ten million from GOB, regarding that trust. Clearly, arrangements will have to be worked out so that the money to pay for the transfer of the shares into the employee trust is properly done can be realized. One possible way is to have the trust mortgage the shares so that all their dividends, or a portion of the dividends until the loans would have been paid off, can act as collateral. That’s one possible way. I am certain that something can be worked out. What I don’t want to promise is that shares can just be handed over without their being paid for or without arrangements being made to pay the shares.” Well, the BTL Employees Trust still exists as a separate legal entity, and is not controlled by Government. That Trust is still expected to pursue Government for the full value of its twenty-two and a half percent shareholding in Telemedia. According to a notice issued by the Trust to Employees in May this year, that full value, less the underlying debt used to originally purchase those Telemedia shares, would be worth at least BZ$100 million to the company’s employees. PM Barrow’s statements seem to be a long, long, way from what the employees should be entitled to, and what they can reasonably expect to obtain.