Ministry of Health latest to contract SMART telecom services
BELMOPAN, Thurs. May 16, 2024
If you go by the social media following (Facebook and Instagram) for our national telecommunication providers, Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) under the Digi brand and SMART Belize (Speednet Communications Limited), BTL is certainly winning. On Facebook, Digi has 106 thousand followers, while Smart has 81 thousand followers. The same disparity reflects on Instagram where Digi has 34.8 k followers, with 988 posts so far, while Smart has 19.9 k followers with 3,405 posts. But where BTL has certainly not been winning is in relation to contracts to provide service to the largest contractor, the Government of Belize. Since the November 2020 general elections, some Government departments and ministries have been abandoning BTL service in favour of Speednet, a Briceño family-owned company. One by one, they have been making the switch.
This week, it was revealed that the Ministry of Health and Wellness has become the latest Government Ministry to reduce business from BTL in favour of SMART. Minister Kevin Bernard told the media that a year and a half ago, they sought proposals from both companies, and after a review, they chose to drop BTL for some services and are going with Smart as of May 1 this year. He commented that the assessment was done as they sought to cut costs. Bernard says that after reviewing the bids from both companies, “… we saw where, in the case of SMART, we would have been saving quite a significant amount of money in terms of the service they provide and the accessibility to the equipment they are providing.” He clarified, though, that they started making the switch in services at main headquarters and will then “expand that out.” He added, “… we have not completely gone away from BTL. We are still utilizing some of the main lines that BTL offers, but we are trying to ensure that we can cut on the telephone bills in the Ministry and that was a decision we made.”
In previous interviews, when Prime Minister John Briceño has been asked about the move from the majority state-owned provider to SMART, he denied there was a policy to switch from BTL to SMART, and chalked it up merely to competition. He stated on August 20, 2021, “… BTL needs to change its mentality from a monopoly to a mentality of a market where you have to compete and you have to provide good customer service.”
While, in public, BTL executives over the years have downplayed the financial hit the diversion of business represents, at least one leaked internal memo back in August of 2021 betrayed that the loss of business was cause for concern and did not sit well with the company. At that time, the news was about SMART winning – over BTL – a $3.37 million contract for the provision of Microsoft 365 software licensing. BTL had the contract prior to that new bidding process. The leaked memo from BTL CEO Ivan Tesecum pointed to the goal posts being moved for SMART, a late minute bidder and then non-Microsoft partner, to come out on top.
Not holding back now is the Opposition United Democratic Party, which has accused the Government of Belize and “its PUP agents” of sabotaging Belize’s national telecom company. The UDP in a release today points out that BTL is among the high value income generating public utility assets which are contributing millions in revenue. The Party describes the diversion of business as the Government depriving itself of profits by taking away millions in contracts from BTL and awarding them to SMART. The UDP affirms that the Government needs to ensure Digi remains “a viable and stable source of revenue.” The Opposition also highlights that apart from the Government, the company features significant investments from the Social Security Board, Belize Public Sector Workers Trust “ … and other institutions that are raising capital to oversee the welfare of the wider Belizean population.” The UDP then makes the statement that,
“This year’s budget reflects that Digi is on the verge of bankruptcy due to government’s continued practice of depriving the state owned company of lucrative contracts to provide telecommunications services to ministry departments and statutory bodies.” It proclaims that GoB dividends shared in this year’s budget have significantly reduced from 2023-2024 to 2024-2025. At press time, we were told that BTL is preparing a release to counter – as erroneous – the figures cited in the UDP release. It was affirmed that even though competition has driven down prices, they are still making a profit. Additionally, the report is that not all ministries and departments have made the switch to SMART.