The 80 million dollar question, a ledger for Belizeans to judge the BTL Speednet deal

By Horace Palacio:

This week, the board of Belize Telemedia Limited approved spending 80 million dollars to buy Speednet, the company Belizeans know as Smart. It did so one day after the Chamber of Commerce publicly begged it to halt. The final agreement still must return to the board before signing, which means one thing.

There is still time for you to think. And you must, because this is not somebody else’s transaction.

BTL is majority owned by the Government of Belize, which is to say, by you. The Social Security Board, holding the retirement contributions of every working Belizean, owns another 34.2 percent. When BTL spends 80 million dollars, it is your company spending what is ultimately your money, with your pension fund along for the ride. You are the shareholder here. So today I will not hand you a verdict. I will hand you the ledger, both columns, honestly weighed, and then I will hand you the gavel.

First, the case for the deal, and let me make it properly, because it is not foolish.

Belize is a nation of 420,000 people carrying two complete, parallel telecommunications networks. Two sets of towers climbing the same skyline. Two fiber networks running down the same streets. Two billing systems, two headquarters, two of everything, serving a market smaller than a single foreign city. The case says this duplication is waste a small country cannot afford, and that one consolidated network could finally achieve the scale to modernize seriously, push fiber and coverage into the villages that neither company found profitable to serve, and strengthen reliability nationwide. BTL says the purchase needs no borrowing and not one new dollar from Social Security, paying for itself from Speednet’s own cash flows in roughly 4.2 years, with the profits of a unified telecom flowing to public hands instead of private ones. And there is a quieter argument some will weigh, that this deal ends Lord Ashcroft’s presence in Belizean telecommunications once and for all. That is the case for. Taken at face value, it is a vision of efficiency, inclusion, and sovereignty.

Now the other column, and it is heavy.

Start with what we already lived. Belizeans of a certain age remember the old single-provider era, and what it delivered, some of the region’s most expensive and slowest service, because a customer with nowhere to go is a customer who need not be pleased. Then competition arrived, and in the PUC’s own public comment file on this very deal sits a citizen pointing to the large price gap between BTL and Speednet as exactly what stands to be lost. Competition is not a theory in Belize. It is the reason your phone plan got better. This deal ends it.

Then the law. Section 42(4) of the Telecommunications Act prohibits agreements that significantly lessen competition in telecommunications. Buying your only major competitor is about the purest example imaginable. The Chamber adds a deeper alarm, Belize has no comprehensive competition or merger control legislation at all, no guardrails, meaning this would be a state-backed monopoly overseen only by a regulator, and the Chamber’s blunt warning is that regulation can never truly replace competition. Which raises the question no one has answered. When government owns the only telecom, and government appoints the referee, who exactly protects you?

Then the valuation. The financial model that justified the 80 million figure was prepared by Moore, a firm the unions say holds established ties to the BTL board, and it was paid for by BTL, the buyer, and reports indicate it stands among the only documents board members received. The unions call that a conflict of interest that renders the number inherently suspect, and demand what any buyer of a used car would demand, an independent inspection.

Then the arithmetic itself, because analysts who have studied the projections raise eyebrows at every line. The model reportedly projects Speednet earning a 66.5 percent profit margin, far above BTL’s own 44 percent, on revenue of 69 million dollars. Skeptics who place Speednet’s realistic revenue nearer 28 to 32 million calculate that the payback stretches not to 4.2 years but to somewhere between 13 and 25. The company’s own slides reportedly show combined revenue going flat, growing under one percent yearly once the deal closes, meaning the promised leap in profits rests almost entirely on cutting costs. And the seller’s own press release confirms where the knife lands, power, software, maintenance, and the duplicated departments, sales, marketing, human resources, finance, IT, purchasing. Behind every one of those words sit Belizean employees whose futures nobody has yet disclosed. BTL claims its payback is calculated on a discounted basis, yet the standard tools of any public investment of this size, the net present value, the internal rate of return, the formal schedules, have not been published for the shareholders, meaning you, to see.

Now count the voices, because the scorecard on this deal is unlike anything in recent memory. In favor, the BTL board and management. Urging halt or answers, the Chamber of Commerce speaking for over six thousand employers, the National Trade Union Congress speaking for organized labor, the parliamentary Opposition, and all four independent senators in a joint statement. Stop and appreciate the rarity. The employers and the unions of this country agree with each other about once a decade. They agree on this. When both the boss and the worker smell the same smoke, wise citizens check for fire.

So, Belize, was 80 million dollars for a national telecom monopoly worth it, or not? That verdict belongs to you. But hear me carefully, because this is the entire point of today’s column.

No honest verdict can be rendered on sealed evidence. Before any Belizean, for or against, can truly judge this deal, six things must be put on the table. Speednet’s audited financial statements for the past five years, so the revenue dispute dies on facts. A second, fully independent, internationally credible valuation, so the price stands on neutral ground. The full financial workings, published, so the payback claim can be tested by any accountant in the country. The honest scope of planned redundancies, so workers stop learning their futures from press releases. A public, rigorous PUC merger review under Section 42(4), conducted as law, not formality. And binding, enforceable consumer protections, in writing, before signing, not promises after.

If this deal is as good as its backers insist, none of that sunlight costs them anything. Good deals survive audits. Only bad ones fear them. And a transaction this size, by a publicly owned company, in a country still raw from the Mira Millions lesson about what happens in the dark, must be concluded in daylight or not at all.

The board has voted. The ink is not dry. You are the shareholder, Belize, all 420,000 of you.

Demand the books. Read the ledger. Then judge.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, Horace Palacio, and do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial stance of Breaking Belize News.

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