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But the leader of the opposition seized upon the opportunity to say that from his business expertise - he doesn't think the litigious climate augurs too well for the sale of those shares:….

John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"I will never argue with about law with the prime minister but when it comes to business I think I do know more than him when it comes to business. And when he is talking about the value of BTL going up, any business person, any sane business person will tell you that whenever there is uncertainty the value of the shares go down and simply because of the concerns and the uncertainty of the future of BTL, even the prime minister had to admit that maybe a miracle can happen in court and they could lose the case, the possibility exists, it might be minute and I will not argue with him over that, I'll give him that, the possibility exists and once the possibility exists then it creates a risk factor that must be putt into the value of the shares. The prime minister needs to come clean to this honorable house. Fine, you are selling some shares to the Belizean public - and again I don't think anybody will have problem with that - but what about the strategic investors, who are going to be the strategic investors? What kind of deal are they going to be getting? Will they be getting a management contract to run the company? Or are we going to replace the present managers that we have whenever these strategic investors are coming, because they will be required to invest a lot of money."

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"The leader of the opposition said that he knew that I will go off on him and I hate to disappoint him, so I will. You ask about strategic partners as well and whether there will be a special management contract, I suppose you had in mind that fact that when your friends with whom you signed the accommodation agreement were owning the company, they took out 6 million dollars a year by way of management contract fees on which they paid no taxes also. That's not going to happen under a United Democratic Party government. What in my respectful view you are trying to do Mr. leader of the opposition is to make clear to people the fact that you are in league with the Ashcroft forces that are trying their very best to derail this sale of the company back to the Belizean people. You disclosed your interest, but let me just remind people what that interest is because in preparation for today - I didn't have much time - but I had time to go and check the companies registry to see whether the shareholding in speednet communications has changed. Speednet has now filed its 2010 annual return, the 2010 return shows its shareholding as follows which is a little different from when we were having the debate and I had brought that to light: Jaime Briceno 57 shares, Renan Briceno 19 shares, Callerbar Limited - the Ashcroft company 145 shares, Riddermark Ventures Limited - the other Ashcroft company 40 shares, , and Heaver Holdings Limited - 75 shares. Over the entirety of Speednet, the Belize Bank has a debenture of a 12 million dollars. The original shareholding in Speednet was changed when on 13 of January, Jaime Briceno transferred 58 of his shares to Heaver Holdings for the wonderful sum of 6 million and 90 thousand dollars. That's what Jaime Briceno made off Michael Aschroft for the transfer of some of the shares, maybe as I said, tell him give some of that money to the farmers of San Jose and then they will be able to buy some shares in Telemedia."

Said Musa, Former Prime Minister
"What this notion is about is not just selling shares to the Belizeans at $5 a share but selling shares to anybody who wants to buy shares in BTL at $5 which means that this is an incentive being offered to say Digicel of Ireland, if they are the ones who will come in to buy shares, that they can get these shares at US$2.50 a share, I would hope incidentally that the government would insist on getting US currency were shares to sold to say a foreign entity like Digicel at BZ$5 a share. So we are right back Mr. Speaker and this is the point I really wanted to make, a simple one, we are right back to the government providing an accommodation. An accommodation agreement, except you brought it to the house now."

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We didn't know an accommodation existed because it was signed in secret. We found out after we took over the government when Keith Arnold wrote to us to say you can't collect any taxes from us because the former prime minister signed a secret agreement."

Said Musa, Former Prime Minister
"Wasn't your law firm involved in that matter?"

Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Man, that is so weak and puny and ridiculous, how could anybody be involved in the accommodation agreement matter when you did it in secret, you and the member sitting beside you who was the attorney general, you were the 2 that together with Ashcroft and the Belize Bank and probably the Allen and Overy people in the UK signed the accommodation agreement. Nobody in this country knew that such as thing even existed. What kind of nonsense about law firm? And you are talking about selling now for $5 and that represents a kind of accommodation agreement? Have you lost your mind, Mr. member for Fort George, how can that be an accommodation agreement? I mean I have accused you of all sorts of things but I have never accused you of being a fool because you are not a fool so when you do an agreement like that what are we to think? We know you are not a fool but only a fool or a knave could have signed an agreement or could have done a transaction like that, so what are we to think? when you buy it from Ashcroft, you pay so much to tell the man that if I can't sell it you will have to buy it back from me, buy you will buy it for far less that what I paid you for. And who paid for all these things? The Belizean public. Man you want to talk about accommodation agreement?"