{"id":81411,"date":"2026-02-07T13:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/?p=81411"},"modified":"2026-02-07T13:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:29:24","slug":"98-of-btl-severance-paid-but-what-about-claims-older-than-6-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/98-of-btl-severance-paid-but-what-about-claims-older-than-6-years\/","title":{"rendered":"98% of BTL Severance Paid, But What About Claims Older Than 6 Years?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) says it has completed nearly all severance payments owed to former employees following a Caribbean Court of Justice ruling last November.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the company confirmed it began processing payments \u201cwithout delay\u201d and has now settled 98 percent of eligible claims that were made &#8220;within the 6-year limitation period prescribed by section 4 of the Limitation Act&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>BTL noted that three former employees have yet to collect their payments. \u201cThe remaining two percent\u2026 have not attended BTL offices to complete the disbursement,\u201d the release stated.<\/p>\n<p>But the company\u2019s reliance on the six\u2011year statute of limitations has sparked criticism. Some argue severance is not just a legal requirement but a matter of fairness. One social media comment read, \u201cThe judgement does not say that if six years has passed\u2026 BTL cannot pay said employee their already earned severance monies. On the contrary, the Judge articulates\u2026 the purpose of severance is a form of social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BTL\u2019s statement came after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/pm-briceno-backs-workers-severance-claim-against-telemedia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Prime Minister John Brice\u00f1o<\/a> spoke following Friday\u2019s House sitting, saying former employees have a strong case. \u201cI don\u2019t think there is a statute bar for your severance pay\u2026 At the end of the day, some way has to be found to pay those people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Belize Communication Workers for Justice (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/former-btl-employees-say-175-still-await-severance-pay\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BCWJ<\/a>) staged three days of protest outside BTL\u2019s headquarters in Belize City, demanding payment to workers even beyond the six\u2011year limit.<\/p>\n<p>BTL concluded its release by noting that its Board of Directors is reviewing claims from workers whose employment ended more than six years ago.<\/p>\n<p>A final decision is expected at the board\u2019s next meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) says it has completed nearly all severance payments owed to former employees following a Caribbean Court of Justice ruling last November. In a statement, the company confirmed it began processing payments \u201cwithout delay\u201d and has now settled 98 percent of eligible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":81414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,444,475],"tags":[10561,10565,10566],"class_list":["post-81411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-latest-news","category-news","tag-2026-02-07","tag-98-of-btl-severance-paid","tag-but-what-about-claims-older-than-6-years"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81413,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81411\/revisions\/81413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}