The Public Utilities Commission has done a good thing in asking for public comment on its proposal to reform and strengthen telecommunication regulations in Belize.
We especially applaud the move to require all licensees to share infrastructure and interconnect facilities for the benefit of the public.
When BTL under the Ashcroft crew cut off RADIO KREM from its international service, there was a howl of protest from the public, and rightly so.
RADIO KREM enjoys the freedom of the press which is guaranteed to all Belizeans by the Belize Constitution which provides for freedom of information.
But when BTL cut off its competitor, Speednet at the knee by denying telephone service to 90,000 subscribers - there was an eerie silence. That too was a denial of freedom of information, and of constitutional rights, but nobody wanted to criticize the newly metaphorized BTL.
History has shown that when we fail to criticize the government or any of its agencies for something wrong, or when we try to conceal something which is of public interest, we weaken our democracy and pave the way for further abuse.
Our newspaper, the Reporter, was severely criticized by the Barrow Government, meaning BTL posing as the Barrow Government, for publishing a report which said that BTL had accepted a loan of US $ 22 million from the Belize Bank of Turks & Caicos and had fallen behind on two of its payments.
The release by the Government Information Service condemned the report as completely false. Yet days later BTL was forced to admit that indeed there was a loan, and yes, BTL had deliberately missed some payments.
BTL went on to state that the bank’s loan was illegal, because it did not have the approval of the Board of Directors, and that BTL did not  intend to honour it.
That is BTL’s position, and we hope for Belize’s sake, that the company is right on that score. But it was wrong for BTL to describe the Reporter story as false, and it is wrong for BTL to hold malice with the Reporter and shut down its advertising programme.
The Reporter will survive  the BTL  boycott just as it has survived the antics of the Musa government and its vindictive libel suits. This newspaper has seen better jancunu dance, and these measures will not deter us from telling the truth at all times, no matter how much it hurts.
We are grateful to the Public Utilities Commission for its desire to reform telecommunications in Belize, and we hope it will do something to discourage the kind of competition.
In our view that leads it to destroy other people’s property. It is a wasteful and immoral practice for a resource-scarce country like Belize to be indulging in this kind of savagery, where one company acquires 10,000 of the competition’s mobile telephone sets to destroy them. This can only lead to an internecine war that will weaken both companies, leaving the client-customers of Belize to pay the bill and pick up the pieces.
This is a dangerous practice that should be stopped!
The PUC should say so in no uncertain terms!
Reporter

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