And while there are a lot of questions - none of the parties involved in the sale seems especially bothered by what the Public Utilities Commission has or doesn't have to say.
For some perspective, we asked the opinion of the former Chairman of the PUC, John Avery. He was in that office for 12 and a half years. He says that Belize's entire Telecommunications act is framed around the expectation that there will be competition. He said that BTL's plan to simply buy out its competitor and create a monopoly runs clearly afoul of the spirit and letter of the law:...
John Avery, Former PUC Chairman (12.5 Years ago)
"PUC does not have to approve it. It says that if you have any sale or that sort of thing and you do it without prior approval, that's an offence. But that law doesn't say that PUC has to approve anything. It says that before PUC approve it, you have to see if it will frustrate the objects of the Act."
"And clearly, this would frustrate the object of the Act, which is to promote competition. And the penalties for these violations for licensees, and I'm telling you, the penalties for anti-competitive behavior under the Telecom Act is harsher than any act in this country."
"Not only you have these fines and potential jail time, after all of this, it says you must forfeit your license. You must forfeit your license to the PUC."
Reporter
"They want to buy out the assets of SMART and the three cable companies. If that proceeds, they would be violating the act by that action of monopoly."
John Avery, Former PUC Chairman (12.5 Years ago)
"And their license, yes, basically. Because what, I mean, you admit it, you're getting rid of the competitor. You're doing this in order to affect competition."
"Why else would you do it? For 38 years, the government has been saying that is how we're going. A previous government cost us hundreds of millions of dollars saying we're implementing competition. And to ignore all of that and to do what we're doing now, to me, what does it say about how our country is being managed?"
We'll have more of that interview with Avery in tomorrow's news.
