Michael Ashcroft has washed his hands of BTL and walked away with a tidy profit leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.
That was announced today on Carlisle's website which posted a release saying that "Carlisle has completed the sale of its 52.46% of BTL to the Government of Belize for $57 U.S. dollars." It's fairly plain language and it means that, for the time being at least, GOB is the owner of BTL.
That's the outcome but it wasn't at all the plan. On December 11th it was announced that at the end of a 60-day due diligence period Innovative Communications Company would buy BTL. Those 60 days came and went last week with the deal still not closed. But it seems Ashcroft wasn't interested in the delays, and when the deal sputtered, it forced government to pay off Ashcroft.
45 minutes ago, government sent out its own release, which confirms the purchase. But now, GOB says the due diligence period has been extended by another 30 days for ICC to complete its due diligence and buy the shares from government.
Confirmed now by GOB, the sale flatly contradicts emphatic public pronouncements made in January by the Minister of Finance that publicly guaranteed funds would not be risked to facilitate the BTL deal.
Here are those remarks.
Hon. Ralph Fonseca, Minister of Finance (January 28th 2004)
"We do not own BTL. We are acting as facilitators. We would never put ourselves in a position where the government of Belize owns BTL for one minute, to get sued. What we have done is worked out an agreement where the Carlisle people will pass on their shares to the ICC people. If we were not successful at all that 104 million dollars will not go to Carlisle, it will go to the people that put it there."
And while government has not been successful at all in "passing on" the shares from Carlisle to ICC, the money has not gone back to "the people that put the money there" - it has gone instead to Ashcroft's company.
Government's release states that the management of BTL led presumably by Carlisle CEO Dean Boyce will remain in place until the transaction with ICC is completed.
As for Jeffrey Prosser's ICC, Vice-President of Public Relations, Rene Henry today refused comment on the announcement stating that it is, "inappropriate to comment at this time."
And while all this brews, the other related situation that bears watching is the case brought against BTL by the PUC for charging consumers prices that were not approved. According to lead consumer advocate Lascelle Arnold, that suit which is claiming tens of millions of dollars is scheduled for hearing on February 27th.