Government intends to challenge the contract or possibly contracts signed between BTL and Speednet on February 6th.
That's the word coming form unofficial sources in Belmopan. Government's argument will be that the contract was not legal because at the time of signing, the Carlisle management team was only the custodian manager of BTL, while government was the owner. Using this argument government hopes to strike down the contract - but it won't be that easy because Carlisle comes with its own formidable legal team.
It's a development that ICC executives will have to watch closely and doing that on the ground in real time is ICC Director Sir Shridath Ramphal who is in Belize this week - reportedly to either finalize or forego the sale.
How big a wrinkle is the BTL/Speednet deal? Jules Vasquez tried to find some answers.
Jules Vasquez, 7NEWS Director
The contract's 21 pages outline an agreement, where the Briceno owned Speednet; supposedly BTL's competitors in the wireless sector will lease a room from BTL in the international building, adjoining the Esquivel Telecom center on St. Thomas Street. The agreement states that Speednet will use the room to provide telecommunication services for 15 years up until February 2019 with a fee of $2,375 a month for the first year, with an annual 3% increase. The agreement is signed by Jorge Briceno, the deputy prime minister's half brother for Speednet and Mary Meighan for BTL, the manager for corporate sales.
Revealed now, just 5 days before the due diligence expires - the revelation could throw the impending BTL deal into a terminal tailspin.
Why? Well because first it discloses that the Ashcroft-run BTL made a long-term arrangement with the Briceno owned Speednet on February 6th. This, after GOB paid $104 million for the company and just days before it paid the final installment of $10 million more.
Government will argue that because they didn't own the company and were only running it, Ashcroft's executives had no authority to approve this contract.
But whosever's authority Ashcroft's executives did or did not have; the deal was sealed fairly tightly on February 6. Revealed now, the contract represents non-disclosure of a critical long-term agreement between BTL and Speednet. It's an agreement that ICC executives never knew about and changes the entire complexion of the deal, the operational status of the company they're supposed to buy and the competitive situation it faces.
So if it doesn't serve ICC and it doesn't serve government, who does it serve? Well the Briceno's and Ashcroft both benefit. Ashcroft because he maintains a close political and now business relationship with the half brother of the man who one day could be Prime Minister, and the Briceno's because the deal could extend beyond BTL into financing arrangements with Ashcroft's Belize Bank.
And while finance minister Fonseca has a lot of embarrassing explaining to do with ICC's Jeffrey Prosser - what's most at risk here is the $114 million government has fronted to facilitate the sale - it's money that becomes more costly and more risky every day.
In all this it's worth noting that BTL launched a case last year to challenge the Speednet license, we could not determine the current status of that case.
And for all the behind the political scenes intrigue, perhaps most intriguing is the seismic effect that the revelation of the secret contract could have on the Musa administration after all Finance Minister Fonseca and the Prime Minister will have to explain to ICC what that company's executives could perceive as a conflict of interest.