The new agreement between the government of The Bahamas and Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) announced by Prime Minister Perry Christie last week was the culmination of a political exercise and a waste of time, said Sir William Allen, a former advisor to the Ingraham administration, and a former minister of finance.
"Clearly, they have not achieved what they set out to achieve," Sir William told National Review yesterday.
"They had in mind something which I think is quite different from what happened. In fact, I am not sure anything happened of substance. I would give them 'A' for effort, for the time involved, and 'F' for what they achieved, quite frankly."
Sir William added that the kindest thing he could say about the new agreement is that it failed and did no damage, thanks to the dogged determination of CWC.
"The attempt to take back control of BTC is nothing short of once more injecting politics into this highly technological and hugely critical aspect of the competitiveness of the Bahamian economy," he said.
"I can't imagine why the government wished to follow through on a silly political promise after reaping some benefit from it on the campaign trail in appealing to those who opposed the privatization in the first place. Their failure was a success for the company and the economy."
Under the deal, CWC will transfer 5,093,200 of its shares in BTC back to the government for placement in a foundation that will hold these shares in trust for the Bahamian people, Christie announced.
These shares represent just under two percent of the total issued share equity in BTC.
CWC will retain voting rights in BTC as well as remain the largest overall shareholder.
Sir William said under the "new" agreement, the status quo remains.
But he added, "There is one benefit that I guess they could point to. [That] is that some funds, some benefits, are going to accrue to some causes or some...charities, I guess.
"But what I am not sure [about] is, is that these are not benefits that would have accrued had they not gone through this exercise."
The government is insisting that the proceeds from the reacquired shares will be in addition to the causes BTC contributes to. BTC has also confirmed this.
Sir William pointed out that he has not seen the actual deal to be able to examine the specifics.
He added, however, "Nothing has changed with regard to the management control of BTC and if that was the objective, as I assumed it to be, then it was a waste of time.
"I thought the criticism made of the former administration in the privatization of BTC was that they gave control to this foreign entity and the objective was to take it back. Well, that has not happened."
CWC said in a statement that the shares transferred to the BTC Foundation will not be entitled to any voting rights.
It will also maintain management and board control of the business, and as a consequence continue to consolidate BTC's financial results.
Sir William noted that the nearly two percent of shares "have no power".
"Therefore," he said, "they [CWC] have a slightly higher percentage than the government has. I don't think it [the government] has achieved anything.
"I've been in politics too. You have to make it seem that you did something. So, it's a little smoke and mirrors now and a wise person realizes what happened."
Chief government negotiator Franklyn Wilson has said repeatedly that the deal entered into by the Ingraham administration in 2011 to sell 51 percent of BTC to Cable & Wireless was a "horrendous deal".
But neither Wilson nor the government has given any details to support this.
In fact, the prime minister has defended his government's decision to use KPMG, the same advisors for the pending Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) deal that Ingraham used for the BTC sale.
Wilson is still calling for the appointment of a select committee of Parliament to look into the Ingraham deal with CWC.
Sir William said yesterday that the government should just reveal what it has to prove that the original deal was "horrendous".
He noted that government negotiators have suggested that some dishonesty happened in negotiating the original deal.
"I think they should say what they found," Sir William said. "I think somehow there should be some effort to get a sense of that which went so wrong in the privatization effort. If it's disclosed, Bahamian people would be quite concerned about it."
GOOD DEAL
Asked whether he thought the original deal was a good one for Bahamians, Sir William said, "Yes, it was. I think it was a good deal."
"I think it is still a good deal," he added. "I don't think much has changed. We've had this exercise to take back control. We didn't take back control. And I think the private company is going to do what it was going to do before this exercise took place.
"It is going to provide good management of this very important operation."
Sir William was also asked whether he is pleased with what CWC has done with BTC so far.
"I am satisfied with what they have done," he said.
"I believe they have been distracted, quite frankly, and I believe now that this exercise is behind them, they are going to be able to devote their entire attention to the business of BTC and I think that distraction did hold them back to some extent."
Sir William said he looks forward to better service from BTC.
"I am hoping that they would do a lot better than they have done in the first [three years]," he said.
"The dropped calls disappoint me considerably. I didn't like that at all, I didn't understand it.
"But I believe they've been distracted."
Sir William also said he was disappointed that Christie used "political talk" to waste so much time in office.
"I recognize there are a number of Bahamians, including the unions, that did not support privatization," he said.
"I could see them making a political appeal to those people. But he should not have followed through on it.
"It was counter productive, so I was disappointed that he went ahead and tried to do this."

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