Dean Barrow says Fonseca is lying
On Thursday, News 5 spoke with Minister of Finance Ralph Fonseca about the sale of Belize Telecommunications Limited and the status of the negotiations. Fonseca said that should the deal with the prospective new buyer, Jeffrey Prosser, drop through G.O.B. could either take the shares it bought from Carlisle to the market, or back to Carlisle since there is an arrangement that obligates them to buy them back.
Stewart Krohn
“The question that immediately arises is government now owns those shares, despite the fact that they might be in a box. Government borrowed, if reports are correct, upwards of fifty-seven million U.S. dollars to buy them.”
Ralph Fonseca
“Yes.”
Stewart Krohn
“What guarantees does government have that I.C.C. will now come and presumably reimburse that same amount to purchase the shares from government?”
Ralph Fonseca
“Our agreement with I.C.C. is that they will pay that exact amount for those shares. And there is no horse trading, they are not fighting about that. The due diligence process has nothing to do with that. If I.C.C. were not to buy the shares after the due diligence period, and that could happen, then we would have again two options: one would be to give the shares back to Carlisle and get our monies back, or the other would be to take the shares to the market. In the meantime, in order to make sure that government is not in a liability situation with B.T.L., we have continued the management of B.T.L. with the Carlisle people. So the Carlisle agreement is still in place, Carlisle is still managing B.T.L. because I have said to the Belizean people that government would not want to put taxpayers money at risk.”
Stewart Krohn
“So the first option you gave of Carlisle buying the shares back, are they obligated to do that if the deal with I.C.C. does not go through?”
Ralph Fonseca
“Yes.”
Today, Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow disputed the Minister’s claim that Carlisle would be obligated to take back the shares. News 5 spoke with Barrow at his office this afternoon.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“That has to be an absolute lie. I have checked with my sources in Belmopan and they confirmed that there is no such agreement with Carlisle, but the proof of it lies in the fact that Carlisle is a publicly traded company. It is on I think the New York stock exchange. And so, whenever Carlisle does anything, such as it has with the sale of share, it has to make full public disclosure. Carlisle just this week made an announcement saying “we have now completed our sale of the shares in B.T.L. to the government of Belize for fifty-seven million dollars. And that’s it, end of story, we are out of the picture.”
“The Government is very much on the hook now for fifty-seven million U.S. dollars that it has already borrowed. It has already paid two months interest, another month’s interest is accruing, it’s paid the transaction costs of making the loan, and it is in a position where there is no guarantee that it can sell the shares, even in the next thirty days. Naturally, the questions are coming thick and fast: How could the government be so stupid? How could it put itself in this absolutely vulnerable position? So the minister has to try to cover over what he has done by saying, “No, no we are guaranteed a resale of the shares because if Prosser doesn’t come through, and nobody else wants to buy, we can sell back to Carlisle.” He has to say that because otherwise there is proof positive that this is the most incredibly stupid transaction perhaps in the history of our country.”
Minister Ralph Fonseca told News 5 today that, “G.O.B. does have an agreement with the Chairman of Carlisle and the Chairman knows the processes and the requirements of the S.E.C., and more so than the Leader of the Opposition, he will know how to deal with the requirements of the S.E.C.”
Dean Barrow says the U.D.P. would not object, if the Prosser deal drops through, to a public offering that would allow the shares to continue to be held nationally.
