From our studied observation of the history of BTL - we'd have to say its about money - the company has been one of the most profitable in the country's history - and in the monopoly era it was a legitimate cash cow. Originally, the plan was for those earnings to go back to Belizean shareholders - but in the neoliberal era, influential investors wanted in.

We've put together a very basic timeline. The company was privatized in 1988 - the first utility and first public entity to be privatized in Belize's history.

The company's articles of association were drafted so that no one entity could own more than 24% - but in 1993 - just before the election, the Price Administration signed a letter authorizing companies within the Ashcroft group to act as "permitted persons" - which would own more than 25%.

By 2003, that group's holdings had stepped up to 52% - and with the monopoly expired and Glenn Godfrey's Intelco trying to break into the market, Government bought over the Ashcroft Group's holdings - with the intent to sell to Jeffrey Prosser. In doing so, they did an unusual thing, they signed a buyback clause with Ashcroft; that if the Prosser deal failed - he could buy it back.

Prosser took over in March of 2004 - after the Ashcroft ownership signed an interconnection deal with SPEEDNET in February. Prosser turned out to be a straw man - and he never paid for the shares, so after a great deal of back and forth, in November, Prosser defaulted on a commitment he made with government and Ashcroft took back over - invoking the buy back clause, buying of course at cheaper price.

The Musa Administration was by then only too happy to get the Prosser millstone from around its neck and in September of 2005, they signed a secret accommodation agreement with him. And that's where the real trouble began - because that agreement guaranteed to give the Ashcroft group a guaranteed rate of return - and if it didn't get it, it could withhold tax payments. Those withholdings started in or around January of 2008 - which led Government to take the company to court to recover its taxes.