The BTL Employees Trust - depending on who you believe, it's either worth somewhere in the vicinity of 85 million dollars or, alternately, that it owes 18 million dollars. Viewers will recall that the trust was originally set up by the Ashcroft controlled management of BTL as an employee's shareholding of 20% of the company's shares. But those employees never got to own or operate the trust and it floated somewhere in the rare air of Ashcroft's corporate ether.
But since the government takeover, the trust has become a subject of much contention in the courts, and it came to ground yesterday evening when Trustee Dean Boyce invited BTL employees to come and hear about what they were entitled to under the trust. The Trust's attorney Godfrey Smith talked up major figures which could be due to the trust when the compensation is settled, and the invitation should have seemed irresistible….but it fizzled; reports from two media personnel who tried to attend the closed door session are that only 8 people attended the meeting. Notably one of them was Communicaiton Workers Union member and senator for labour Paul Perriot. According to a press release from the trust, Trustee Dean Boyce and attorney Godfrey Smith met with union representatives and updated them on the validity of the trust. But the executive management of BTL today called the press to say, "game over" because not even 1% of the 500 invited employees showed up:
Nestor Vasquez, Exec. Chairman - BTL
"We have heard of the failure that Dean Boyce had in calling the meeting to meet with employees of Belize Telemedia. From what I was told earlier this morning there may have been about 8 persons attending 2 of which I believe were not even employees of BTL. So I would say that they have failed miserably considering that we have about 500 employees in this company. From during the week when the staff started to ask questions we decided to meet the heads of department and explain to them the position that we know it to be truthful and in fact what all they needed to know about the so called employees trust. This deal was created in 2005 and up to now five years later the employees have received no benefits what so ever."
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