The hopes of the 400 workers of BTL were dashed this morning when Dean Boyce, trustee of Sunshine Holdings Limited, a Lord Michael Ashcroft-related company, told them that the company had gotten the 20% share of BTL which the Government of Belize had promised the workers months ago.

Perriott said that the workers were told that in order to get the shares, they would have to take on a 15-year syndicated $40 million loan. In the meantime, they would have no voting rights on the shares. They were also told that they could have no trustees on the Sunshine board, but could appoint an officer to liaise between their union and Sunshine.

No alternative was offered to the Sunshine deal, Perriott said.

?We view it as a slap in the face,? he remarked.

Twenty-nine members of the BCWU Council met this evening and decided to reject the Sunshine deal. When we asked Perriott what their reason was, he said that it was primarily because the deal gives them no voting rights?no real say in BTL?which is what they have been fighting for.

This morning Prime Minister, Right Hon. Said Musa; Attorney General, Hon. Francis Fonseca; and Sunshine trustee, Dean Boyce, who is an Ashcroft employee who currently heads BTL and sits on the company?s executive committee, met with union reps in the presence of BTL management employees.

Keith Arnold, BTL chairman who is reportedly the second Sunshine trustee, is out of the country and did not attend the meeting.

P.M. Musa opened the meeting, but Boyce was doing most of the talking, Perriott told us.

According to Perriott, Boyce told them that even if they come up with the $40 million tomorrow, they won?t get the 20% shares in BTL.

?I just think it?s another form of disrespect from this present government for the BTL workers ? Belizeans in particular,? said Perriott. [What I feel right now is]?total frustration and anger at the whole deal that they have presented to us, the employees of BTL.?

At a press conference broadcast on Monday, Perriott had said that the BTL workers wanted to purchase the shares using their own trust company, and not that controlled by Ashcroft.

That same day, Prime Minister, Right Hon. Said Musa, endorsed the Sunshine deal on national television, and he went on to tell the media that he would close the deal with Sunshine in two days?which would have been yesterday, Wednesday, Independence Day. He touted the deal as one intended for the benefit of BTL workers.

Perriott told us that in today?s meeting with Musa and Boyce, the unions received nothing in writing and so still have many unanswered questions about the Sunshine agreement with GOB.

Now that BTL?s workers have rejected the Sunshine deal, it is uncertain what will happen to the BTL shares. Musa had told the press on Monday that if the BTL workers rejected the shares, he would offer them to all Belizeans.

In June, the National Assembly had approved the sale of 12.5% shares to another Ashcroft-related company, ECOM; 20% to the BTL workers; and 5% to the Belizean public. The total is 37.5%.

To date, there has been no offering of that 5% to the Belizean public. We have been informed that while the Central Bank is the authority that should be offering the shares, the offering would be made through the Belize Bank. But the Belize Bank is not currently selling those shares. The Central Bank, we understand, is taking a list of persons interested, but is also not selling.

So what will become of the 37.5% of BTL shares that GOB decided to sell in June? The BCWU thinks that GOB never intended to sell those shares to Belizeans, but only to Ashcroft.

?Everything GOB has done so far is to give Ashcroft control. Our name should have never been used,? said Perriott.

In his opinion, GOB merely used the name of BTL workers to get $20 million in public funds?$10 million from Central Government and $10 million from Social Security?for Ashcroft, who is a billionaire banker.

The sale of 20% BTL shares to Sunshine and 12.5% to ECOM would place nearly 60% of BTL under Ashcroft?s control and give him more than half the directorships on BTL?s board, reconsolidating his control of BTL.

In February 2004, GOB purchased 52% of BTL from Carlisle Holdings, ECOM?s parent company, paying Ashcroft a US$5 million premium on the sale. Earlier this year, Ashcroft repurchased 15% of those shares and got a $12 million-$18 million tax write-off as part of the deal. In the third leg of the transaction, Sunshine, another Ashcroft affiliate, gets to borrow $20 million of public funds at 8.5% interest, pays nothing for 5 years, pays only interest after 5 years for the first five years, and repays the principal in 2020.

This is a vastly concessionary lending of public funds, which, Perriott says, has been done in the name of BTL workers when the intention, the workers now assume, was never to give them the shares in the first place.