Schreiber cites personal reasons for his resignation from Belize Telemedia Limited

BELIZE CITY, Mon. July 1, 2019– Rochus Schreiber, who has been at the helm of Belize Telemedia Limited for the past two and a half years, following the resignation of Anwar Barrow, one of Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s sons, suddenly resigned from his lucrative post last Friday, June 28.

Schreiber’s resignation was confirmed by the company’s Human Resource Department through a BTL employees’ bulletin.

The resignation is scheduled to take effect at the end of September. According to the BTL employees bulletin announcing Schreiber’s resignation, “he intends to pursue other personal interests and reunite with his family in the United Kingdom at the end of September.”

The BTL employees bulletin added, “In line with the company succession plan, BTL intends to fill the post with a qualified Belizean.”

When it was first announced, Schreiber’s appointment was questioned by a number of Belizeans who felt that BTL should be managed by Belizeans.

Schreiber reportedly was earning a base salary of almost half a million Belize dollars, and with perks, his actual income was almost three quarters of a million dollars per year.

7News quoted Schreiber as saying, “There will be an orderly handover of responsibility to a new Belizean CEO.”

7News, however, reported, “We are told his departure is the product of internal differences at the senior management level — and that he is not leaving on the happiest of terms.

His tenure at the helm of the company saw it make many major transitions, rolling out a national fiber network and re-branding to ‘Digi’.”

On the downside, profits have not grown during that period, 7News said in its coverage of Schreiber’s resignation.

“Schreiber confirmed this departure has nothing to do with the recent news about sales tax arrears,” 7News also reported.

Nonetheless, it should be noted that Schreiber’s resignation comes on the heels of the allegation, based on leaked documents, that BTL is indebted to the General Sales Tax Department to the tune of over 29 million dollars, and this figure does not include interest and penalties which, if there is indeed such a debt, would add many more millions to the amount owed by the company.

Amandala made several attempts to speak to the BTL board chairman, Nestor Vasquez, but we were unable to do so.

It should also be pointed out that the duration of Schreiber’s contract was never made public, so it is not known how much time was left on the contract when he submitted his resignation.