S.S.B. Challenged in “Putting Investment to Work”

Deborah Ruiz

And, while the Hol Chan Marine Reserve has agreed to repay S.S.B. the three point five million dollars over a period of fifteen years, at almost seven percent interest, S.S.B. has over one hundred million dollars sitting in its account earning only two and a half percent annually. C.E.O. Ruiz says S.S.B. has been struggling to identify new investments that would yield favorable returns, while inflation continues to nullify the interests being earned on those funds sitting in the bank.

Deborah Ruiz, Chief Executive Officer, S.S.B.

“What is a challenge for us is finding new investments. Um, the investments are performing what we need, new investments in order to sustain the long-term funds. We are not where we need to be because of the inflation. Uh, if we are getting our money, we’re very liquid, unfortunately must say, because we need viable investment. We have over a hundred million to invest, so we’re seriously looking for projects and trying to see how we can make this money work better for us. Sitting in the bank earning two and a half percent is not doing us any good. So we need to invest that money in order to turn it around, and that is where we are falling short. We need to invest money to get bigger returns, because if we get two and a half percent and we have inflation, it negates everything. You’re basically ending up with zero and in order to not go back to the Belizean people for rate increase. We need to put the investments to work so people out there who have viable projects, please talk to us and see how we can work together to  grow the economy of Belize by investing in saving projects.”