On August 4, 2026, a major public and labor conflict erupted in Belize City over a planned corporate acquisition, as the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) maintained its unwavering opposition to Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL)’s proposed takeover of SpeedNet Communications, which operates under the brand name SMART.
Opponents of the deal gathered in protest directly outside BTL’s headquarters on St. Thomas Street, raising urgent red flags about four core issues: a lack of procedural transparency, questionable company valuation, risks to market competition, and the absence of meaningful broad public consultation before the BTL board of directors met to deliberate the acquisition. News of the scheduled board meeting quickly mobilized organized labor groups, with NTUCB and its president Ella Waight leading the opposition charge.
In an on-the-ground statement during the protest, Waight confirmed that union leaders only learned the board meeting would move forward on the morning of August 4, after weeks of uncertainty about the timing of the vote. She emphasized that NTUCB’s opposition to the acquisition has not shifted since the beginning of 2026, when a majority of the congress’ 11 affiliated unions voted to reject the takeover. That opposition, she stressed, will remain unchanged no matter what decision the BTL board reaches.
While the official result of the board’s closed-door deliberations had not been released to the public as of the protest, Waight made clear the NTUCB’s non-negotiable position: “The overall finalised decision has to be no.”
Waight argued that key concerns and recommendations raised by labor and other public stakeholders were completely ignored in the lead-up to the board vote. One of the union’s central demands has been a full, multi-year independent audit of SMART’s assets and operations, rather than the limited single-year audit that has been completed to date. Waight questioned the validity of the narrow assessment, noting, “who can assess a company for one year?” As of the protest, that full independent audit had not been carried out.
BTL attempted to address criticism of lack of outreach in a formal letter dated July 31, confirming that stakeholder consultations had been completed and that the acquisition proposal would now be forwarded to Belize’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for final regulatory review. But Waight pushed back hard against that claim, arguing that any consultation that did occur was limited to a small, insider circle of connected interests rather than including all affected parties. “There were only cliques of little consultations that happened,” she said.
Waight dismissed BTL’s response to union concerns as empty and unresponsive, saying “It was irrelevant of the concerns we had. No substance to that answer.” She also revealed that the NTUCB submitted two formal letters to the PUC prior to the BTL board vote, requesting clarity on the regulatory process for the acquisition and details about the commission’s review timeline. As of the protest, the union had not received any reply to either correspondence, a snub that has eroded all trust in the regulatory process among union leaders. “So at this point, we have no trust in them,” Waight said.