{"id":82013,"date":"2026-02-12T18:57:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/?p=82013"},"modified":"2026-02-12T18:57:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:57:41","slug":"former-ceo-says-btl-unlikely-to-justify-80m-dollar-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/former-ceo-says-btl-unlikely-to-justify-80m-dollar-acquisition\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CEO says BTL Unlikely to Justify $80M Dollar Acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The debate over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/belize-business-bureau-urges-puc-oversight-in-btl-merger\/\">BTL\u2019s planned eighty\u2011million\u2011dollar purchase of Speednet<\/a> just took a new turn because for many Belizeans, this isn\u2019t only about telecoms. It\u2019s more about trust. When the country\u2019s largest phone company, one that\u2019s majority government\u2011owned and backed by Social Security funds, moves to spend that kind of money, people want straight answers. And right now, they\u2019re not convinced they\u2019re getting them. Across social media and in public forums, Belizeans are asking a simple question: Is Speednet really worth eighty million dollars? And if it is, where\u2019s the financial breakdown that proves it? Those questions landed squarely on the table at a Civic Fellowship Academy panel on Wednesday. Former BTL CEO Anwar Barrow didn\u2019t sugarcoat his response. He suggested the public shouldn\u2019t hold its breath for a detailed financial justification, at least not one that makes its way into the light. So tonight, the conversation shifts. This is about transparency, accountability, and who gets to see the math behind one of the biggest telecom deals in Belize\u2019s recent history.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anwar Barrow, Former Chief Executive Officer, BTL <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI don\u2019t see legal mechanism for that, Their many be justification that happens to shareholders, and when I say shareholders, if you go that route and say that I am a taxpayer by way of the government owning shares so I want the government to disclose the financials, That\u2019s an argument but it\u2019s a little but indirect fir it to be disclosed to the government. If this transaction goes through and BTL doesn\u2019t make the kind of money that they\u2019re expecting to make from the acquisition, I don\u2019t necessarily know that the government will have to step in and bail them out of there\u2019s some automatic hook like that. So it\u2019s not a financial question, what the question really is, is around will the market be better off for it? The board of directors make a decision, but I think the question from the public is more along the lines of what\u2019s applicable here is will this be better for me? I\u2019m gonna have less choices because obviously right now I only have two choices and then I\u2019ll only have one. Is that going to affect my service? I think in terms of the call for\u00a0 we want to see financials, I\u2019m not sure how you place that or there\u2019s no direct way to place that is what I\u2019m trying to say.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debate over BTL\u2019s planned eighty\u2011million\u2011dollar purchase of Speednet just took a new turn because for many Belizeans, this isn\u2019t only about telecoms. It\u2019s more about trust. When the country\u2019s largest phone company, one that\u2019s majority government\u2011owned and backed by Social Security funds, moves to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":81981,"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":[484,449,444,475,474],"tags":[10698,10722],"class_list":["post-82013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-economy","category-latest-news","category-news","category-people-places","tag-2026-02-12","tag-former-ceo-says-btl-unlikely-to-justify-80m-dollar-acquisition"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82013","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82014,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82013\/revisions\/82014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}