At the top of the news, we showed you what Dean Barrow had to say as the attorney representing Karen Bevans, the former Director of Tourism - after she won a large defamation award against Prime Minister John Briceno and RSV media.
That conversation allowed us the first opportunity to conduct a sort of exit interview with him after he left office and retired from public life last November. And of course, we asked about BTL, the nationalized telecoms company now known as Digi.
A major part of the former Prime Minister's legacy is the decade-long fight over BTL with the former owners, the Ashcroft Alliance. That case spent many years in the highest courts in Belize, and in the end, the former Prime Minister's government entered a settlement with the Alliance, which cost taxpayers well over half a billion dollars.
And now that BTL - the national telecom - is losing government business to its competitor, Speednet, also known as Smart, we asked the former Prime Minister for his thoughts:
Reporter
"I have to ask you quickly about BTL. Belizeans paid a hefty price to get the company back in public hands, nearly a billion dollars and we are hearing a few months after your administration that BTL is in dire financial straints."
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"Well, it's a major investment and I still think that it was a good investment. It was an investment dearly bought. It was an investment that cost us a lot in terms blood and treasure, but ultimately it's an investment that would have more than paid for itself. Over the long run we enshrined the public ownership in the constitution, of course the current administration has the constitutional super majority to change that. I hope they wouldn't go that far and I don't think they would. But the public ownership over a long stretch of history would have paid for itself and there was no doubt that in terms of the improvements to their network that BTL made under nationalized ownership, the fiber to the home agenda, the internet in schools, not just the free internet, the programs that see people using the Microsoft 365 under the egis of BTL. The fact that in terms of bandwidth, in terms of speed, in terms of efficiency, the huge investment firstly with Huawei, just as how in the same way I was convinced that what we paid for the acquisition of the company would have over the long term fetched the government and people very hefty and healthy returns, likewise, whatever we paid for the investment in improving the network was going to pay off. The fact that we could have boasted at one point that we were way up there in terms of a global ranking."
"Of course BTL would have already started to experience some problems because of the huge capital investment, because of the huge investment period and not being able to recoup or to reap the profits very quickly. So, there clearly were some difficulties in terms of the bottom line and perhaps maybe even the top line. But there was no doubt in my mind that ultimately this was an investment and a public ownership of which we could be proud."
"I want to be careful. I do not want to attack the prime Minister personally, but I will say that it does not look good that in fact in government business is being diverted from BTL which is government-owned on behalf of the public, BTL whether you like it or not in terms of the way it was acquired and how dearly it was bought is a national asset. Does not look good for the government that he heads to be diverting business from BTL and in fact taking it the business to a company that's owned, or partially owned by his family. I find that that is disturbing. It doesn't pass the smell test."
Tomorrow, we'll have more from that interview with Barrow, when he speaks about the turmoil within his UDP after his exit.
