He's been serving as CEO since the government "stronged" BTL from Jeffrey Prosser on February 9, 2005, but today Gaspar Aguilar was removed from that post. The order comes from the Board of Directors which met today for the first time since May.
The board hadn't met because of the ongoing dispute over who actually controls it. Well today, Minister of Public Utilities Ralph Fonseca moved decisively to settle that matter; he used a controversial new law to remove the two Prosser directors who had been appointed with the Special Share. With that, the meeting proceeded with only six directors, not the 8 that are required by the articles. Three of those six directors are government appointees; they are: former CEO Ediberto Tesecum, President of the Senate Phillip Zuniga, and Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit Keith Arnold. The other three are Michael Ashcroft appointees and they are all his companies, namely Seascape Holdings, Shire Holdings, and Rocky Reef Ventures, with at least one of those companies represented by former Ashcroft CEO Dean Boyce and another represented by Ashcroft's local lieutenant Phillip Osbourne.
That board appointed Keith Arnold as Chairman and Dean Boyce as his Deputy. They will join Ediberto Tesecum and Phillip Osbourne on a executive committee which will take up the day to day management of the company, including the CEO's job. With that, Aguilar now resumes his prior post of finance and human resources.
It's a long anticipated and decisive move to wrest control of BTL for government and Ashcroft. Prosser is expected to challenge it because his attorneys advise that, by virtue of last week's Appeals Court ruling he has at least, two directors other than those that came by virtue of the Special Share.
A far more formidable threat is expected come from the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago which was holding the Special Share as collateral for US$27 million in Intelco debt taken up by Prosser which was to have been assumed by BTL. With the special share directors gone, RBTT now has basically an unsecured debt, and reliable reports tell us they will be pursuing legal action in Belizean courts to reclaim that security.
However, it certainly sets a bold and some might say worrying precedent, when a minister can act to circumvent the articles of a company to remove and subsequently install directors to his preference. BEL, for example, also has a special share with the same rights. Of course, the trouble with this BTL special share came to the forefront because government sold it to Prosser, it claims for a still unpaid dollar, when, according to the Chief Justice of Belize, it should never have been sold to a private interest because the share was created to protect the Belizean consumer.
