The elephants are back to fighting over the highly lucrative Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL), and the grass runs the risk of getting trampled in the process all over again. By this we mean that American Jeffrey Prosser is again locking horns with the management of BTL, controlled by British mogul, Lord Michael Ashcroft, and his point man, Dean Boyce.
Incidentally—but not accidentally—the dispute is taking place amid an industrial dispute between the current management of BTL and the Belize Communication Workers’ Union (BCWU), which represents BTL workers. The union is accused of siding with Prosser, while Prosser is accused of taking advantage of an already volatile situation between management and workers, to the detriment of BTL.
But it is neither Ashcroft nor Boyce who is doing the talking with Prosser’s people. The man on the frontline is Keith Arnold – who left the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), in the midst of calls for a money laundering investigation of BTL and allegations of conflict of interest, to retain the highly coveted chairmanship of BTL.
Arnold has proven to be invaluable to BTL’s management team, and his balking letter to Prosser’s point man, Herbert Sampson, has successfully kept Prosser off BTL’s compound – at least for the time being.
On February 9, 2007—two years to the day Government booted Prosser off BTL’s board on the claim that he failed to meet the payment deadline for BTL shares—Sampson issued a notice inviting a group of directors (notably excluding those currently functioning on BTL’s board) to a board meeting at BTL’s St. Thomas Street headquarters.
Arnold was not invited to the meeting, and Prosser said that he would chair it because he is the non-executive chairman of BTL—a position ICC said it took on the basis of rulings in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. But Arnold said, no way, and furthermore told ICC that if they dare set foot on BTL, they could end up being arrested.
Arnold told Sampson that if Prosser, whom he calls “the purported chairman of BTL,” indeed comes back to Belize, he should, instead, settle all his debts to BTL – which the company last reported to be $21.07 million, including expenses BTL has claimed Prosser incurred for purchasing Intelco assets.
In a stinging two-page letter to Sampson, Arnold asserted that neither Sampson nor Prosser have the authority they claim to act on BTL’s behalf, and he ordered Sampson to stop using BTL’s letterhead and to destroy any copies remaining in his possession.
Arnold went further to say that since Prosser has filed bankruptcy in the United States, he cannot serve as director/chairman of BTL. As for Sampson, Arnold tells him that the post of deputy secretary, which Sampson claims to hold, does not even exist.
No doubt, the quarrel that is now full blown between Ashcroft’s team and Prosser’s team will add fuel to an already volatile situation, but the BCWU claims that its interest right now is protecting workers, because Ashcroft’s management has been talking of retrenching workers and cutting back on resources – talk which BCWU president, Paul Perriott, says the union does not like to hear.
But the wider backdrop to this dispute is really over three years of quarrelling over the ownership and control of BTL – which many say is the most lucrative company in Belize.
In late 2003 GOB bought back majority shares from Ashcroft in the midst of a long spate of boardroom battles between Government and Ashcroft’s directors. In March 2004 Government cut a deal with Ashcroft to buy back those shares. It later credited them to Prosser for two promissory notes, and when Prosser did not make full payment on the notes in February 2005, GOB seized back majority shares. Months later, GOB divested the vast majority of those shares to two Ashcroft companies – ECOM and Sunshine. However, since GOB ousted Prosser in February 2005, he has mounted a series of attempts to regain control of BTL, including a slew of court battles in Belize and Miami aimed at establishing his shareholder rights in BTL.
Things have been silent since last September when BTL held its AGM without two of Prosser’s directors that the Belize Supreme Court had ruled had to get proper notices for the meeting. Prosser still claims that that AGM and the business transacted there—including the payment of dividends—was illegal.
In his letter to Sampson, Arnold went on to say that while Prosser is claiming his authority based on two court rulings, he has not tried to enforce those rulings when they were made, so why do it now when the management is locked in a dispute with the union?
“In these circumstances, the purported notice appears to be nothing more than an opportunistic step taken with the view to trying to destabilize the company by whipping up further unnecessary controversy,” said Arnold. “Such actions are extremely serious and may in the circumstances amount to incitement of violence and criminal conduct.”
Notably, the Minister of Police is also the same Minister of Public Utilities – Hon. Ralph Fonseca, who attempted to relieve Prosser of the Special Share in BTL and the two associated directorships, by what the Supreme Court later found last year to be an invalid statutory instrument.
To avoid the threatened arrest, Prosser’s company said that it would not meet at BTL Friday after all, but the board ICC claims to be valid is to meet instead at the Princess Hotel next week Thursday.
ICC said that it decided to change its plans because of “a threatening letter from the chairman of the illegal BTL board, Keith Arnold,” telling Prosser he would be arrested if he sets foot on BTL’s property.
The ICC release concluded saying, “…we will not give the illegal management of BTL a pretext to detract from the industrial action of the BTL workers by creating an incident with Innovative’s directors.”
By all indications, the four Government directors summoned to the meeting at Princess – who have not functioned in that capacity for at least the last year and a half, will not be attending, because, according to our sources, the Government does not acknowledge Prosser’s claims over BTL.
At the same time, the Government, through the Ministry of Labor, has been trying to meet with the BCWU and BTL’s management in an attempt to settle the trade dispute the BCWU says it has with BTL following the termination of three liaison officers who worked in the stores section of BTL.
But just as Arnold has threatened Prosser’s team with arrest, so too has BTL’s management cautioned their workers.
Yesterday evening, Tuesday, February 13, BTL’s management issued an employee bulletin which accuses the union of a “deliberate attempt to undermine and defame the existing chairman and board of directors of BTL, and to interfere with and unsettle the management team that has been properly appointed…”
The management points out that the BCWU has been circulating some of the ICC correspondences about the planned meeting, which management claims is an attempt to incite disruption and civil unrest, and is consequently criminal.
The bulletin said that management had requested that the union meet with Martha Molina and Arturo Vasquez and other members of the grievance committee, but instead the union has been stirring up trouble by encouraging disruptive acts. Management calls for a peaceful resolution of their differences.
The BCWU argues that the issues are a trade dispute and not a grievance, thus the grievance committee is not the proper authority with which they should be meeting. Instead, they have been calling to meet with Dean Boyce, who is, incidentally, the man dubbed “trustee” of 20% of BTL’s shares earmarked for the union, but over which the union has no control.
Union officials contend that the company belongs to the workers and the Belizeans, and according to Paul Perriott, the BCWU still lays claim to the 20% shareholding, even though, we note, they have refused to sign any documents on the terms proposed by representatives of Ashcroft and the Government because, they argue, they will be paying forever for those shares and not see the tangible benefits.
BTL workers have not had the benefit of those shares, bought in their name, and taxpayers and Social Security contributors are out a total of $20 million—absolutely free money to Sunshine at least until 2010— and those shares are now working to Ashcroft’s benefit.
Some Social Security Board directors believe that if the BTL workers are not benefiting from those shares, then Sunhsine/Ashcroft needs to return SSB’s money. Amandala sources say that the SSB’s attempts to get the $10 million loan it gave to Sunshine reversed have proved futile, even though the board of SSB has made its position known to both the Prime Minister, Hon. Said Musa, and Arnold.
We recall that the SSB gave Sunshine the $10 million loan after Prime Minister Said Musa announced a moratorium on loans to private entities, because of public controversy over the use of SSB funds for risky private ventures and a wide-scale Senate investigation into SSB funds.
Thanks to a syndicated loan through the SSB, Central Government and Ashcroft’s Belize Bank, Ashcroft controls over 60% of BTL’s shares, Prosser 30%, and Belizeans and trade unions less than 10%.
As the battle for BTL intensifies, all these issues will continue to factor into the national debate.
The last major dispute between management and workers incidentally came to a head around April 2005, months after Prosser was ousted and GOB began divesting shares to Prosser.
Perriott claims that the new management of BTL has been at odds with the union because of their attempt in 2005 to purchase a bloc of shares in BTL. Government was in months of negotiations with workers, including a BTL management team that had created their own company – Sunrise.