ANOTHER great BTL rip off is their VOIP service "Web Talk." It's a sort of Skype imitation, much simpler interface, you sign on and you can make cheap international calls. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
Here's the kicker(s).
1. About 3 weeks after it came on line it fell victim to the "restructuring" of Mr. Ashcroft's Belize Telecommunications Ltd. rename to Belize Telemedia Ltd. It went down for about 3 months...if you had credit you couldn't use it.
2. Now, about 1 month after it came back on stream we discover that it is a service meant for everyone on the planet EXCEPT those living in Belize. Yep, that's right, they block their own service in Belize so that if you don't have access to the right anti-blocking software you HAVE to use BTL land lines to make international calls.
I'm trying to think what has Mr. Ashcroft given to Belize in return to the obscene amounts of money he has made out of this country. He could afford to build good primary schools in every town and village in Belize from his petty cash reserves and he wouldn't even notice a dent in his personal fortune it but you don't see him do that.
Yes, there's a stadium named after him and yes, BTL and Belize Bank offer a few paltry scholarships each year, but apart from that he really offers nothing to this country. He might argue that he employs hundreds but if he didn't have the bank and the phone company someone else would and those same people would have jobs.
His wealth in comparison to Belize's size is many times more than Bill Gates' in comparison to the size of the USA. Bill and Melinda Gates are great benefactors to charity, Mr. Ashcroft is a great benefactor to Mr. Ashcroft.
Personal rape is quite rightly a heinous crime but but what do you get for raping an entire country? Nothing in Belize, it appears.
What a wanker.