The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Is the establishment of the Bahamas Telecommunication Company (BTC), BTC Trust Foundation, a deal of historic proportion or an announcement of a broken trust and the greatest fraudulent misrepresentation in Bahamian history?

The pre-existing stated purpose of the deal was to “regain 2 per cent of the shares of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) thereby giving the government a 51 per cent controlling share interest and to return control of BTC to the Bahamian people”.

Instead what was announced could be likened to prenuptial agreement where the other party also imposed the condition of a chastity belt. It’s an arrangement where Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) not only protected their assets and investment but also denied their partner the real pleasures of consummating the marriage.

In effect, the chastity imposition of removing the voting rights of the vested shares reveals an impotency on behalf of the government and ensures a sterile outcome where all the sensations, pleasures and fulfillment of majority ownership are apparent but remain only a figment of the government’s imagination.

The Prime Minister’s ecstatic announcement seemed to surprise both his colleagues and the CWC representatives and reminded of earlier days when certain phonies would brag about conquering the most beautiful and sought after young lady, but the young lady had no knowledge or experience of his conquest and those with some understanding knew that the phonies were just simply masturbating, in public no less.

The Prime Minister’s legacy will forever be tarnished by his fictitious and illusionary BTC Trust Foundation concept of gaining “majority economic interest”, a sequel to the government’s referendum debacle of “regularising web shops is the same as legalising web shops” and the broken trust and dubious, election promise of “doubling the investment in education”.

This claim of gaining “majority economic interest” ownership, therefore, is a matter of form rather than substance, nominal rather than real.

In so doing, the recent BTC fictitious and intellectually deceiving concept leaves more questions unanswered than answered including the following non-exhaustive list of questions:

• Is there a “Declaration of Trust” and if there is, what are the terms and conditions?

• What type of trust is the BTC Trust? Is it revocable?

• Who are the trustees or board members and will the government or CWC control the management of the BTC Trust Foundation?

• Can the grantor CWC specify an end date or condition to the Trust?

• How does the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas figure in this deal and what is the extent of its involvement?

When all is said and done, this is not a square deal. The Bahamian people are left with a curious instance of duplicate ownership which allows for the separation of the powers of management and the rights of enjoyment.

The net effect of this queer deal is, the BTC Trust Foundation holds trust-ownership of CWC’s 5,093,000 shares and holds beneficial-ownership of CWC’s 5,093,000 shares.

With CWC as both trustee and legal owner of CWC shares, the 5,093,000 shares merely vest in the Foundation.

Despite claims that the negotiating team achieved this “transfer” of shares without the government paying one cent for the “transfer”, there is no free lunch.

Unlike the convoluted “Blue Water Deal” where dividends were designated to pay for ownership purchase of 49 per cent of BTC shares, the Foundation holds less than 2 per cent of the shares for the benefit of the stated beneficiaries, the Bahamian people, but does not hold them on the Bahamian people’s behalf.

In such an equitable arrangement, the final result is that the legal ownership remains unchanged, CWC is the legal owner of 51 per cent of the shares in BTC and the government legally owns 49 per cent. What a sad day!

It gets worse! The most egregious and regrettable aspect of this protracted and quixotic episode was the spectacle of the government of a sovereign nation, the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, being equated to and mockingly out-manoeuvred by the foreign representatives of a private company. It was absolutely disgusting to witness the Prime Minister and most of his Cabinet Ministers groveling at the feet of CWC.

Many Ministers appearing to be shackled by the command to attend, hung their heads in embarrassing shame like prisoners shunning exposure of the cameras.

In the end, the announcement, sandwiched between the liberating celebrations for Dr Martin Luther King and the civil rights honouring of Prime Minister, Perry Christie in Atlanta, Georgia, turned out to be nothing more than an economic prenuptial agreement framed in a chastity belt attached. What a tragedy!

D HALSON MOULTRIE

Nassau,

January 24, 2014.