Tonight, the executive of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize is preparing to meet with representatives of the BTL Board of Directors tomorrow. The BTL executives are trying to pitch them on the commercial logic of the acquisition of Speednet/SMART.
It's an 80 million dollar transaction - from which the Prime Minister's family stands to benefit to the tune of 18 million dollars for their 22% holding in the company. The other 77% is held by the Ashcroft Alliance in one of its many charitable trusts.
Last week the Prime Minister was reported to be personally pitching the deal to BTL board members, but when we spoke to him yesterday - he was much more laid back on it. He said it is a process:
Reporter
"What is the status, the current status for the proposed acquisition?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I don't know. You'd have to check with BTL."
Reporter
"But do you consider that despite all the opposition there's been from so many sectors and the people as well that BTL should push through with it as they seem to want to do?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think that's a very loaded question but I think there's a process and we should allow the process to pass. We need to, to appreciate that this is a, despite the fact that BTL is owned by the government and Social Security majority, because we have a lot of small shareholders I think we should allow BTL to to do a business decision they need to do, what they believe is in the interest, and the board members have a fiduciary responsibility to BTL. And if they believe that the decision that BTL is making is a good one you should support it. If it's a bad one they should say no. But again, BTL is going through a process I'm told they're meeting with different sectors explaining, because a lot of, I think what happened is that when the announcement was made which is a process, you announce and then you go and talk to people. There was a lot of uncertainty or people weren't sure what's, what was happening and now they have started the process of meeting. I know they've met with members of the Chamber and the Business Bureau, they've met with Social Security and the plan is that they'll come to the cabinet on Tuesday to give us a full briefing."
