Category: Belize District

The question of whether injured individuals in police custody should be taken to the hospital by officers for immediate medical attention remains a topic of much discussion. Earlier this year, Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams explained that it is not the responsibility of the police and explained that by doing so, the police may put individuals at risk of further injury. Today, we spoke with emergency medical technician, Javier Canul, who has been working in the field for over twenty-five years, about this issue. He explained that not only should officers refrain from transporting people to the hospital, but they should be trained in providing first responder care to stabilize patients until an E.M.T. arrives at the scene. 

 

Javier Canul, Lead instructor, ABC Life Support

 “The question is being asked, should police officers should take the injured. The answer to that is no. What the police officers should do is be properly trained to maintain and stabilize that patient until the ambulance come or until help comes along. So their is job is to secure the area, make sure it is safe, one. And then two, get down there, and if the patient is not breathing, open the air way. If the patient is bleeding, stop the bleeding. If the patient needs cpr, they should start it. The job of the police is to stabilize the patient until the ambulance gets there. The job of the police is not to jump and throw anybody at the back of any vehicle and run with them. That’s the role of the police department.”

 

Reporter

“Does that hurt them more if they do that?”

 

Javier Canul

“Definitely if they put them in a vehicle and run and throw them around. Definitely so.”

The Portico Definitive Agreement, which was signed back in 2020 under the U.D.P. administration included a slew of fiscal incentives. Among them, the developer was exempted from paying several taxes, including business taxes, income taxes, and environmental taxes. As we know, when the Briceño administration took office, the prime minister announced that the agreement would not be pursued because it was not in the best interest of the nation. Gegg maintains that given the magnitude of the investment; the project is deserving of such exemptions. He further noted that Portico Enterprises Limited did not invent these exemptions adding that this is what is expected by investors pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Belize.

 

David Gegg, Developer, Portico Enterprises Limited

“If this country is expected to have progress, if we expect foreign direct investments, major projects, infrastructural, agriculture, whatever it is, whoever are the developers and the company behind those projects expects to get the same kind of fiscal incentives, benefits, packages that we got. We did not invent this, companies in Belize have been getting this same kind of fiscal incentives for decades and I am sure the companies in Belize today and tomorrow will continue to get incentives and it is a must. If we don’t provide packages of fiscal incentives to investors who are prepared to put up two, three hundred million dollars they are going to take their money somewhere else. They don’t need to bring money to Belize. There are a lot of places where they can get returns, without the fight, hassle and aggravation they now have in Belize. Mr. Bennet is reminding me that the tax exemptions for Stake Bank are for twenty-five years, and it is very similar to those within our definitive agreement. Thirty years and about double the capital expenditure that Stake Bank was expecting at that time.”

The Senate Special Select Committee’s public hearing resumed today inside the National Assembly. The committee is tasked with looking into the Portico Definitive Agreement. And, this morning David Gegg, the principal of Portico Enterprises Limited, was once again called to testify before the committee. Gegg, unlike other individuals who have been called before the committee, has been candid about the company’s affairs and signing of the agreement. The four-hundred-million-dollar project remains in limbo. Viewers may recall that former U.D.P. minister, Tracy Panton, who served as the Minister of State in the Ministry of Investments, was the first person to testify before the committee back in December 2023. She told the committee that she did not see, nor did she read the definitive agreement.  Today, Gegg asserted that Panton never supported Portico Enterprises Limited for any reason other than her allegiance was elsewhere.

 

David Gegg, Developer, Portico Enterprises Limited

“She would never have supported our project Senator, you know that. She was firmly committed to the other one. She was out there with a shovel digging dirt at the time they had groundbreaking. Totally committed to the other one and did everything she could to prevent our project from materializing.”

 

 

Kevin Herrera, Senator

“So you don’t believe there was anything you could have done to satisfy?”

 

 

 

 

David Gegg

 “I couldn’t compete with Mr. Feinstein.”

 

Kevin Herrera

“What do you mean by that?”

 

David Gegg

“His resources for support were far greater than ours and besides that we had commitments through our relationship with Boskalis that we could not provide any money to any minister for anything whatsoever. That was written in our agreement with them.”

 

Kevin Herrera

“I know the letter that was written to the prime minister was also copied to Ms. Panton, do you believe she may have seen that letter?”

 

David Gegg

“I believe she tore it up.”

 

Kevin Herrera

“Why did you say that?”

 

David Gegg

“Because she did not want our project to proceed.”

As we have reported, the Portico Definitive Agreement was signed in 2020 by Erwin Contreras, the former U.D.P. Minister of Economic Development. During today’s session Gegg noted that he met with Contreras after receiving word that the project’s environmental clearance would not be approved because the National Environmental Appraisal Committee did not have a quorum when the matter was deliberated. Gegg says the former minister informed him that he would sign the agreement if certain conditions were included in the document.

 

David Gegg, Developer, Portico Enterprises Limited

“That we certainly felt was necessary to get the Definitive Agreement and when I was told after the August twenty-eight meeting, I felt really good about that, and then a few days later we were told no quorum, so we don’t have it. It was after that in sheer frustration and disgust that I went to meet with Mr. Contreras to share with him what had happened, and he said clearly that we don’t have an environment clearance so he doesn’t think he can accommodate the signing of a definitive agreement. I pointed out that the Harvest Caye agreement had been signed without them first getting environmental clearance. The long and short of it is that Minister Contreras got back to us and said if we are prepared to implement certain conditions precedent, including that in the absence of environmental clearance, documents is not enforceable then he would sign it and that is what he signed, the document he signed really was of no value to us because without environment clearance we had nothing to stand on.”

Senator Janelle Chanona pressed developer David Gegg further on the lack of publicity behind the Portico Definitive Agreement when it was initially signed. She asserted that any investor would want to publicize such a huge achievement if it was intended for the benefit of Belizeans. Here is how that exchange played out.

 

Janelle Chanona, Senator

“Even before last year when this inquiry commenced, why no fanfare, why nobody is talking about it before that Cabinet leak?”

 

David Gegg, Developer, Portico Enterprises Limited

“Because the attacks by my competitors were continuous, daily nightly, social media, and I said let me just do my thing in the corner and here I am today and where are they?”

 

Janelle Chanona

“I can’t help but feel that if you had this and this project is what you say it is, would it have mattered what any critic said?”

 

David Gegg

“Senator I have a lot of contacts in the industry, the people who know they will benefit from the project, they are the ones I keep in contact with. I don’t have to go on TV and say this and that. I don’t even have social media, YouTube or whatever, Facebook, I don’t even have a Facebook, I don’t need it. There are too many garbage out there. I have my support, grass roots people on the ground who knows they are going to benefit from this project when it materializes. They are the ones who count.”

Former Bad Boy recording artist Shyne Barrow has drawn distance from Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in the wake of video evidence that the well-known music mogul physically abused his ex-girlfriend.  The footage which was aired exclusively by C.N.N. on Friday, has raised the ire of many in the music industry, including Barrow, now Belize’s opposition leader.  This morning, the rapper turned politician discussed the issue briefly after releasing a statement on Sunday.

 

Shyne Barrow, Leader of Opposition

“I have been categorically clear as to denouncing the repugnant behavior of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs as we saw the video capturing him brutally, physically assaulting Mrs. Cassie Ventura-Fine and I have said I want nothing to do with anyone engaging in such activities.  End.  Period.  Any other national issues?”

 

Reporter

“Is that a statement referring obliquely to Patrick Faber who has been on camera, not engaged in that level of activities, but he has been caught on camera engaged in disputes of a domestic nature where violence is not explicit but implicit and there was a video in 2014 that did show him dragging a woman by her hair down a hallway.”

 

Shyne Barrow

“I did not see that video, but I do know the other videos that I did see and my condemnation has been consistent. So this idea of Diddy Combs, the only thing that he was proposing to give was the scholarship from Howard [University] which has not come to fruition. I don’t know what’s happening with Howard [University], if Howard would want to still help Belize, we will take it, but at this point I want nothing to do with anyone that is engaging in that type of activity.”