Is There a Connection Between S.S.B. Withdrawal and Pending G.O.B. Settlement?
John Briceño
Is there a connection between the sudden desire by G.O.B. to raise fifty million by divesting shares and a court ordered settlement that has now come due? The Opposition isn’t sure, but leader John Briceño today presented a letter in which B.T.L. has been informed, just this week, of the ninety-seven million which must be repaid to British Caribbean Bank. Actually, B.T.L. will only pay half of that through a long term concessionary loan from G.O.B., and taxpayers will pay the balance.
John Briceño, P.U.P. Leader
“It has just come to our attention a letter that the Financial Secretary wrote to the chairman of B.T.L. Mr. Net Vasquez advising them about the U.S. forty-eight million dollar award that was done against the government/B.T.L. It was a loan of twenty million dollars or forty million dollars Belize that the government refused to pay. When they went to Court the government lost that case. Everybody knew that they would have lost that case. And now that loan has gone from forty million dollars Belize to ninety-seven million dollars Belize. The government now is saying that they are going to saddle B.T.L. with another forty-eight million dollars that they have to pay and they’re saying that they’re going to pay three percent interest and a bullet payment in twenty years. At the end of the day B.T.L. is now going to have on its books another forty-eight million dollars. And the Prime Minister has decided that we the taxpayers, because of the foolish decisions that he and his government made, we have to take hard earned taxpayer monies and we have to pay off forty-eight million dollars. So all of that brings into question that investment in B.T.L.”
Well since we are playing the what if. Here I go. So lets ask a simple question, how did you or me, the average Belizean, how did we benefit from UDP Government taking over BTL. Cause my telephone rates have not gone down, and the way I see it, my tax dollars will end up paying this deal…either my tax dollars or my weekly social security contributions or both!! So can any member of the UDP please explain how this deal benefits us the Belizean public???? A fair question I think. Or could this have been a deal between Ashcroft and Barrow where Ascroft sells a company that has old, outdated equipment and get new cash which he can put into another company and barrow benefits cause his law firm will handle all the legal matters and we the tax payer end up paying the rest. (Maybe this is part of “The Best is Yet To Come”)
Mr. Briceño has made a nation concern point, and perhaps its time the people of this country can wake up and see clearly that they are not benefiting from this investment. The mode in which BTL was acquired was not the wise way and now Belizean tax payers will have to pay for all the mistakes done.