The Prime Minister is also the Minister with responsibility for the Public Utilities Commission, meaning he appoints the members.
We asked the him what factored into this limited approval.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"What has happened is that, remember Belize, our citizens have made an investment of over 610 million dollars in BTL and we need to try to find how best to find that balance. We also have another telecom, we have the cable providers and it would be, the competition, we can't fight the wealthiest man on Earth so we have been encouraging Starlink to have resellers, work with BTL, work with Smart, work with the cable companies, but they want it all and we can't allow that. And many countries have had many problems by allowing Starlink to just come and open competition because they've been running many companies out of politics so what we have been doing, what the PUC's position, which I support is to say while we're not giving them and open license per se, we would allow, if a citizen would come and say yes I want, we've been doing that forever, that I want a satellite dish or whatever back then, you get a license and a permit to be able to do that so what we're saying, if you come and you are living deep in the bush and then you do not have access to internet services and you want to bring it in, they will approve it so i think that is the best compromise we could have."
Jules Vasquez:
"But then are you speaking as a person whose family has significant holdings in the internet provision, as an internet service provider and did that factor into the decision of the PUC?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I am speaking as the prime minister of this country and not as an investor so I remain by that, I don't think I need to waste my time answering that question."
