...Well tonight as Belize heads into a long weekend, that is up in the air.
One week ago, the Prime Minister hinted that Michael Ashcroft may be asked back in to bail government out of a default situation if Jeffrey Prosser cannot pay the International Bank of Miami US$57 million on Monday. That would, once again, make Ashcroft the owner of your telephone company, BTL just as he was last year at this time.
It would be a grim and embarrassing reversal of fortunes for the government which struggled mightily to wrest BTL away from Ashcroft but, critics will argue, it could have been foretold when the government signed a shaky agreement with Prosser. On March 31st. 2004, the day the shares were transferred a late evening government release stated that, "ICC paid US$89,729,838 for the 84% of BTL owned by Carlisle Holdings and the Belize Social Security Board." That, we now know, was a misstatement of fact. Prosser still has not paid the US$57 million for Ashcroft's 52% holding, and only paid the remaining $28 million for Social Security's shares in May and he had to refund the remaining $4 million so government could pretend it had not sold the unions shares without permission. What does all this mean? Quite simply, that at the end of March, Prosser got BTL for nothing more than a song, and a freely given promise that he would pay off government's publicly guaranteed debt at the International Bank of Miami.
Now, it's come down to that promise, and late indications to our office are that, despite our difficulties, Prosser may be able to make the payment. But even if he does that's not the end of it, because Prosser still has to find another US$40 million or so to buy out Intelco which is an absolute must for a Musa administration scrambling to cover and recover massive exposure of public funds put up to sponsor Glenn Godfrey's private telephone fantasy.
And where does the good Lord Ashcroft factor into all this? Well the Prime Minister ventured that, given a poll, most Belizeans would prefer not to have Ashcroft back at the helm of BTL. From a man on the street perspective, PM Musa may be right, but of the record 646 online users who logged on to 7newsbelize.com on Monday and Tuesday, 390, or 60% of them voted that they would want Ashcroft to buy back BTL. We stress the poll is not scientific and is limited to online users.
But whatever the case, the government may have only been holding out the always liquid Ashcroft as a possibility to show Prosser that it has options. By Monday evening, we'll know if that always available option will become the last available resort.