Just back from the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the Prime Minister held his quarterly press conference today. The event was held at the House of Culture for the first time and in the afternoon. It went for an hour and a half with the PM fielding a wide range of questions. One issue he confirmed is that after all attempts at negotiation with BTL have been exhausted and the government will now insist on its refusal to honour the $38.5 million award granted to the phone company by a London Court.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“Cabinet has basically taken a decision that that’s it. We will simply defend this country’s interest in a way now that will see us resist any and all efforts to enforce that order. Remember the order has two aspects, the financial component but also the declaratory parts of the order that say you have to give them the tax breaks, you have to not Voice over Internet Protocol, you have to enshrine the monopoly. We then are obliged to reiterate in a legal way what we have always maintained, that the Accommodation Agreement is illegal. In the context it doesn’t seem to us that it makes any sense at all for us to continue to fool ourselves. As I said then it doesn’t appear, from government’s point of view there is no point in further negotiations.”
Government’s injunction blocking enforcement of the London Court’s judgment in Belize stands.
