Cordel Hyde Weighs in on B.T.L. Arbitration Award

In a matter of a couple weeks, the arbitration panel will be delivering its final, tabulated award on B.T.L. share value assessment, reliably reported to be close to half a billion dollars. That includes interest and costs. According to the terms of an agreement made between Lord Ashcroft and Prime Minister Dean Barrow, half that award must be paid within ten days and the other half in a year. The PM has gone on national television to call it a victory for the government and people of Belize, with the rationale that the price to pay for full national ownership of Belize Telemedia Limited is cheap. That’s his take, but it’s not shared by Cordel Hyde, who told News Five today that taxpayers will be paying half a billion dollars for a utility company worth a fraction of that.

Cordel Hyde

Cordel Hyde, Deputy Leader, People’s United Party

“It’s a lot of money, a lot of money whether in good times or bad times. As far as I know we’re not in good times. It’s anybody’s guess how government will pay for that. The sad thing about it is that I believe at this point people if they had it to do all over again wouldn’t have supported that nationalization effort because at the end of the day we’re paying five hundred million thereabouts for something that’s pretty obsolete. I don’t know if we have fifty million dollars in value on the ground. There’s been no end of speculation and no end of rumors about irregularities taking place in that company, all kinds of fleecing. We spent a ton load of money in legal fees over the years so in effect it will cost us well beyond five hundred million dollars. And the question is what do we have to show for it? At the end of the day we have so many kids that are not in school…so many kids who can’t go to high school because their parents can’t afford it. We’ve blown four hundred and fifty million dollars, almost five hundred million dollars in receipts from the oil company, we’ve gotten dividends from B.T.L. over the years and we don’t have anything to show for it. I think nationalization was about that. Nationalization was about getting something for the people of Belize, and at the end of the day I don’t know that we’ve really gotten anything that’s worth talking about and anything that’s worth writing home about. This may go down as one of the biggest…a really terrible injustice done to the people of Belize, but we shall see.”