PM Briceño Explains Stake Bank’s Compulsory Acquisition

The Government of Belize is compulsorily acquiring a disputed twenty-three-acre extension of Stake Bank Island. The news made headlines on Tuesday evening when a statement was issued following a cabinet meeting during which G.O.B.’s move was finalized. Well, tonight the Feinstein Group, the original proprietor of the island, says it will challenge G.O.B.’s compulsory acquisition. In a late afternoon release, the company referred to the decision as an unfair and improper high-handed interference in a private sector dispute that is live before the High Court. The release outlines several reasons why the Feinstein Group is challenging the acquisition. Among them, the group asserts that G.O.B. is siding with Honduran businessmen of questionable business practices.  They are referring to the company out of Honduras that acquired the sixty-two million dollars loan associated with the Stake Bank cruise port project back in May after the project went into receivership. The release further asserts that these businessmen possess no experience in developing cruise ship port facilities. The Feinstein Group says it is aware that the decision to acquire the twenty-three acres came on the heels of a recent private meeting between one of the Honduran businessmen and Prime Minister John Briceño. This morning, we heard from Prime Minister John Briceño on the decision to take over the twenty-three acres on Stake Bank Island. Here is what he had to say.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“First of all, well, it’s like what you said, how you can compare oranges with apples. There are two different instances. In the first instance with the issue of the land for the hospital, there was a buyer and a seller. They met together, they negotiated one, had one higher price, they a lower price. They negotiated and then they settled on a price. On the Stake Bank land, as you all know this, there’s a legislation that was passed by the UDP whereby we deemed this project of national importance. And now that it seems that the, between the different investors, they have been having, issues. That project has been at a standstill. We have, I think, approximately two hundred and seventy million dollars.  But because there is a dispute with the land, that project cannot be finished. And if you look at the numbers for the cruise lines, they’re going down, we need to be able to finish that project. We believe that as a government, what we did is first to put the first notice of acquisition. What does that trigger? It triggers then the owner to come to government and to  say okay, this is my land and they negotiate a price. If a price, a suitable price cannot be worked out then we go to the second stage when there is compulsory acquired and then the courts take over after that. So it’s a simple issue.”