BTL Defends Profits, Says Revenue Reinvested in National Infrastructure

Chairman of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), Mark Lizarraga, has defended the company’s financial performance and investment strategy, saying BTL remains a strong, profitable enterprise that continues to reinvest heavily in Belize’s telecommunications infrastructure.  Lizarraga made the remarks during a press conference held this morning, coming a day after the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) publicly called on BTL and other major statutory bodies to increase transparency, particularly regarding profits, spending, and returns to the Belizean public.  According to Lizarraga, BTL’s profits are not being stockpiled but are instead being strategically reinvested to modernize networks, expand fiber connectivity, and improve service reliability across the country. He emphasized that these investments are necessary to keep Belize competitive in a rapidly evolving digital economy, while also ensuring long-term sustainability of the company.

Mark Lizarraga, Chairman: “We’ve become more efficient. We’ve become more profitable for the people of Belize, for the shareholders. We’ve given a lot more benefits to the workers of this company as well. Now, we have a duty to take the investment, the directors of this company. We have invested some $700 million in this company, more or less. Then we sold some shares back to SSB and other people, so all told we have about 450, the government, the people of Belize. Not, and the people of Belize are invested through the Social Security as well, of course. But let’s say the government itself as majority shareholders has about $450 million invested in this company. Last year we did the best year ever. We made $31 million dollars. And of that dividends paid back to the GOB and to the SSB, roughly about $13 million. Given that, it would take us 35 years, 35 years to give the people of this country returns on that investment that they made. Now, when we came to the company, we did a five-year projection. We targeted certain returns over the five years ahead of us, which is ending this year and thankfully we’ve hit all those targets. Our target was to give the people of Belize return on equity of 8% in the first year which we did, 9% in the second, 10% in the third, 11% in the fourth and 12% in the fifth which we would have achieved or let’s say this way, we have achieved it but we had to make an adjustment.”