Unions Draw Firm Line After Speednet Statement

Union leaders say they are not against competition, and they are not anti-Speednet. But they are pushing back against the tone of Speednet’s press release following Cabinet’s decision. NTUCB President Ella Waight says the unions found the release to be in bad taste. Meanwhile, the Belize Communication Workers Union is urging government to keep its business with BTL.

 

Ella Waight, President, NTUCB

“As with every other Belizean we agree with competition. Competition is good, but fair competition is better. We support genuine competition in telecommunications because consumers benefit, you benefit, I benefit. The service is better and we have competitive prices. However, the recent Smart/Speednet release, I don’t know about you, it left a bad taste in the workers of this country’s mouth. We found it to be vindictive, rather than constructive.”

 

Harrison August, General Secretary, BCWU

“The Cabinet voted no the acquisition, which is a good stance. But talk is cheap. We no longer want these very Cabinet ministers taking BTL business and funneling it to Smart. Belizeans it is time for us to support our own, the national telecom. Let us send a message to these privately owned companies that we will not tolerate them to being bullies, to put a gun to our heads, to force us to make a deal that they cannot present transparent document that we can have confidence in making a decision.”

 

Speednet says that because the PUC has declared BTL a dominant provider, government tenders for telecom-related services must go through the proper public process.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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