Tag: 2024-02-02

Net Vasquez Estate Says Vasquez’s BTL Debt is Repaid in Full  

In November of 2020, the Belize Communications Workers Union called for former Belize Telemedia Chairman, Net Vasquez to repay every cent that he misused while he held that post at the company. Today, the statement was circulated by the Estate of Nestor Vasquez which informed that they have reached a full and final settlement with Belize Telemedia Limited for the debt owed to the company. Vasquez passed away in April of 2021, but before then, he was accused of mismanaging BTL funds and thereafter resigned as chairman of the company. He also took an undertaking to repay the over eight hundred thousand dollars and had begun to repay the monies before he died. Marion Ali has the update on the final settlement in this report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

He came under fire back in the latter part of 2020 when it was discovered that former Belize Telemedia Chairman, Nestor Vasquez, Senior, had misused over eight hundred thousand dollars of the company’s funds. Vasquez had agreed to repay the monies which he racked up as chairman of B.T.L. The money included more than six hundred thousand dollars in credit card expenses, mostly for his personal use, and a bill for over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Prior to his death, Vasquez had repaid over a hundred and sixty thousand dollars and made arrangements to repay the balance. But despite that, B.T.L. employees were enraged at the news and the President of the Belize Communications Workers Union, Garry Yearwood told the media back then that its members demanded that Vasquez repay every cent.

 

                   Garry Yearwood

Garry Yearwood, Belize Communications Workers Union

“Of course members are indeed upset. We are aware of the audit have been initiated by the past board. I am not too certain if the audit has been completed but membership would definitely want to see a copy of this audit in order for us to have some type of recommendation to put in place. It’s some damning information. Membership quite upset at this point. We did enter into a negotiation the other day for some cost cutting measures where we agreed to give up certain benefits so whatever monies that can be recovered that would be good for our member so that they can get back something that they have given up.”

 

 

                             Net Vasquez

 

Today, the Nestor Vasquez Estate announced that following Vasquez’s passing, both parties entered into mediation and agreed on a settlement figure. And while the estate says that the remaining balance of this debt has now been fully paid, it stopped short of revealing how much money was paid. It added that the last payment was made on January twenty-ninth in compliance with a Supreme Court Order of 2021. The Net Vasquez Estate was represented by attorneys Estevan Perera and Godfrey Smith. News Five reached out to Smith following the release of the statement but he declined comment. We also tried to get a comment from the BTL Chairman, Mark Lizarraga, but he was out of the country.

 

 

Vasquez tendered his resignation as Chairman of BTL in September of 2020 and in December of that same year, resigned from his family business, Tropical Vision Limited, Channel Seven amid the allegations. Marion Ali for News Five.

PM Speaks on Brewing Immigration Scandal

A scandal is brewing at the Immigration Department where an investigation has been launched into the creation of fake receipts for the purchase of new passports.  News Five understands that several public officers are suspected for their participation in the scheme.  It is not clear how much money the employees were able to siphon from government’s coffers when they carried out this fraudulent processing.  Earlier today, Prime Minister John Briceño, whose official responsibilities were recently expanded to include immigration, spoke with reporters regarding the developing situation.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“The point is that as soon as the ministry was aware of it they acted. Now I can’t go into any details because it is still under investigation. But I could assure you that any wrong doing that has been done and if they get any evidence they are going to act on it immediately. What I can add to it is that this individual has been removed from this post for thirty days while the investigation is going on.”

 

Paul Lopez

“Does it come as a shock to you and this somewhat of a black-eye for a ministry that you have been trying to get under tight control?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I think I would want to look at it slightly different than being a black eye. The ministry is not going to tolerate that kind of behavior from our officers and that whenever it comes to our attention we are going to act. Remember it is human nature we are dealing with here. As much as we put the proper processes in place, people that want to do something wrong they are going to try to be as creative as possible as they can to be, in this instance I believe to defraud the government in this case at the Ministry of Immigration.”

PM Explains Recent C.E.O. Shifts  

PM Briceño was also asked about the reason for a recent C.E.O. shuffle that included the Immigration Department. As we have reported, Chief Executive Officer, Adele Catzim-Sanchez was moved over to the Ministry of Human Development, while C.E.O. Tanya Santos was shifted to the Immigration Department. PM Briceño explained that like government ministers, CEOs are also moveable. He further noted that these government officials are a better fit for the posts they have been relocated to.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Ms Catzim, probably you are too young to remember, Ms Catzim between the 1998 and 2008 government, she worked closely with the Minister Dolores in that administration. We wanted to do some changes and it just worked well for her to come to work with Minister Dolores and to move Tanya over to immigration and then Mr. Middleton to move over to the Ministry of Sports and Transport. So it worked well for the change we want to do, but we need to make the point that CEOs just like ministers are changeable. While they may be working in a ministry if we feel they will make a better fit to another ministry we will make those changes.”

 

Reporter

“I believe this will be Minister Ferguson’s third CEO; does the rest of Cabinet intervene at any point to address why he has made so many changes in CEOs?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I don’t think we need to look at it as being the third CEO. In the first instance he was with CEO Leal and when they were not getting along so the best thing at that time was to make a change. And now that we wanted to bring Adele where she is most effective, at Human Development, then we had to make some additional changes.”

HOR Addresses Outstanding Salary Adjustments for B.D.F.

The Leader of the Opposition says that a group of retired Belize Defense Force soldiers are claiming that they are being denied a salary adjustment that was approved under the U.D.P. According to the opposition leader, those retirees have been waiting for up to fourteen months for compensation in accordance with the salary adjustment, to no avail. This morning, Opposition Leader Moses “Shyne” Barrow asked Prime Minister Briceño when his administration will recognize the salary adjustment. Here is how the prime minister responded.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Again I would have hoped that the leader of the opposition would have withdrawn the question because I don’t want to embarrass him. But what I will do, since he could not comprehend what a standard six child would comprehended  if I explained it, I will send you the answers so that you could study it maybe ten time and understand it. In 2019, under UDP, the government agreed to regularize the rate of annual increments of enlisted soldiers, 2019. They also agreed to extend the salary scale for officers. When the Ministry of Finance sent out the circular on this matter, they stated that this revision was not a salary increase nor was it intended to be a salary increase. 2019, mind you. What it was then, it was a salary adjustment and standardization exercise. The memo went even further to explain that any increase in the rate of pay that arise from this was a part of the regularization exercise. In implementing this some mistakes were made. Some officers at the rank of private were placed way up on the pay scale. Follow me so far? For example, they were supposed to be placed at the beginning of the pay scale, but instead were moved several places up the pay scale. When the ministry realized the error they informed those and adjusted the pay scale. If the leader of the opposition was a competent leader we would have never brought this question. He should have asked his party chairman who was then the Minister of the BDF. Remember they had shortage of camouflage cloth. I hope he could have explained it to him. He could have also asked the former prime minister who was the Minister of Finance and they would have told him that no increments was withheld from BDF, simple.”

Salary Issues at ITVET Rectified, Says MoE Official

Today, a Facebook post informed that the ITVET compound on Freetown Road was closed because eleven instructors stayed away from classes after they had not collected their salaries at the end of January. But when we showed up at the institution, we found that while some of the instructors had indeed not shown up, some did and classes were in session for those who were in attendance. The instructors started complaining on Wednesday that the Ministry of Education has not paid them from the start of the school year in September, but they have been getting paid from the school itself. Later on Wednesday, one of the instructors called us to inform that they had all collected their salary for January. The problem with ITVET instructors, according to C.E.O. in the Ministry of Education, Dian Maheia, is a complex one that dates back a while, but that efforts have been made to rectify the problem and that come the end of February, all instructors will start to receive their salary through the Smart Stream system.

 

                                 Dian Maheia

Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Minister of Education

“It took too long for their contracts to have been signed. In the interim, while the employment process was going on, the institution supported the instructors by providing them advances. We are at this stage now where we have done our best to rectify. We’ve found out where the errors were, we have found out where the omissions were. We’ve corrected those errors. We have made every effort to support the different people who are involved in this process because it’s not just a Belize City IT-VET process. It’s not just a Ministry of Education process. We have other ministries who are also involved, other units of other ministries, and they have also made every effort to be supportive so that we can correct the mistakes that have happened. Now, where we are now with this process is that they have all been added now to Smart Stream. They’ve been added to the ministries – to the Treasury’s   payroll. So they now are going to be paid automatically through the Treasury and not through the school.”

 

Marion Ali

“So from the end of February, everybody should be paid February 29th on time.”

 

Dian Maheia

“Whatever day is the payday. So what I expect is that the administration has found a way to keep everything going because I have not been told that there has been any sort of closure or negative impact to the students that are there.”

 

Maheia informed that there were no classes at IT-VET this afternoon because of a meeting for all faculty and staff.

Ministry of Education Explains OW ITVET Situation

Earlier this week, thirty students attending the Orange Walk ITVET were reportedly sent home after several months of being unable to pay their school fees.  It is a decision that is frowned upon by the Ministry of Education and today, C.E.O. Dian Maheia explained that the students were not suspended from school, but were in fact asked to return with their parents to discuss a payment plan.

 

Dian Maheia

Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“My understanding was that the ITVET Orange Walk had concerns because they had students with outstanding fees, parents who had not kept up with the payment arrangements and so they chose to ask the students to go to get the parents to come and confirm how they are going to handle their payment arrangements.”

 

Marion Ali

“So those students are for nonpayment of school fees.”

 

 

Dian Maheia

“My understanding is that they are not out of school, that they were asked just to get the parents so that they could have a conversation regarding outstanding school fees.”

 

 

Marion Ali

“For the students whose families absolutely can‘t afford it, will they be asked to stay at home until they can?”

 

Dian Maheia

“No…They won‘t…”

Hello e-Buses, is Belize Ready for the Transition?

A second electric bus was scheduled to arrive in country today, ahead of the start of a pilot project to introduce e-buses to the public transportation landscape in Belize.  Those buses will be used in Belize City and overseen by the Belize City Council under a project that is funded by the European Union.  According to eTransit Startup Coordinator, Neil Hall, the plan is to eventually expand the project by adding more buses to the fleet of e-buses that will be operating in other parts of the country.

 

                              Neil Hall

Neil Hall, e-Transit Startup Coordinator

“The funding is coming from the EU, the European Union.  The thought that Belize would be a dynamic location to have a pilot project such as this, moving us away from the buses that we currently have which are antiquated and spewing lots of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases and to try out and see if electric buses would actually be a good investment for the country of Belize. Belize City will be receiving two buses, nine meters in length, with capacities of about forty-seven passengers with standees and sitting passengers.  Yes, the laws must be amended.  While the larger buses will be twelve-meter buses, I’m not sure of their capacity because I’m not a part of the national program and have that information on hand. There are two buses and they will be charged at night and then during the day when they come out, obviously they will not be charging and roughly fully charged and be able to traverse the entire city without having to stop back at the charger and recharge.  However, again, being a pilot project, these things are dependent on weather, on how the driver drives, on several different factors, on congestion in the streets, for example, so there might be situations where it’s necessary for the buses to pull in and charge and in situations like that, we estimate that it would be out of service, quote on quote, for one lap, and then would just rejoin like nothing happened.”

Annual Hurricane Shelter Inspections Completed  

Hurricane safety awareness is a year-round endeavor, says the Belize City Council, which recently completed the annual inspections of Belize City’s Hurricane Shelters. These inspections are a necessary part of hurricane preparation, which isn’t reserved for just hurricane season. We spoke with Melony Dawson, the City Emergency Management Organization’s Liaison Officer, for more information.

 

                             Melony Dawson

Melony Dawson, CEMO Liaison Officer, Belize City Council

“We had our annual shelter inspection last week. It took us merely a week and this is comprised of a team to inspect these shelters within Belize City. This is to make sure that these shelters are structurally sound. It’s basically to provide safe space for the shelter we use during times of any disaster. What we do is, a team of us, we go out. And this team is comprised of our city engineer, our city planner, we also have our building inspectors, and in addition to that, we do this in collaboration with NEMO, of course, and the two NEMO coordinators, along with the police department, and the fire department, so everyone has a technical part to do whenever we go out to do this inspection and also to make mention we have Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education who assist us as well.”

 

Reporter

“What exactly are you checking for when these inspections occur?”

 

Melony Dawson, CEMO Liaison Officer, Belize City Council

“So we go by the National Standards for Emergency Shelters and we basically have to ensure that these buildings are structurally sound, like I mentioned. We want these buildings to be up to standards in the event of any storm. And thereafter, we have to ensure that the, for example, We look for simple things like the windows to make sure they are working well, the doors, they have the proper locks and different stuff like that.”

 

Reporter

“How many shelters were checked recently across Belize City?”

 

Melony Dawson

“We did, last week we inspected nineteen shelters and, in addition to that, after the inspection, we do our reports and these are basically findings for each of the shelters we did. We write the report and then thereafter we send it to NEMO headquarters and then from there, they do vetting of the listing and then they make their approval from there and thereafter that is where NEMO published the shelters.”

The Musical Rhythm of the Heart  

The month of February is recognized as Congenital Heart Defect Awareness month and tonight’s story highlights a young man whose life is a testament to resilience and the uplifting power of music. Despite being born with a congenital heart defect, Aiden Aranda has forged his path as a gifted musician, self-taught and versatile in playing multiple instruments. Here’s this week’s Look on the Bright Side.

 

Sabreena Daly, Reporting

The impact of music resonates universally, touching the depths of every soul that consumes it. Though the influence of music extends to all, only a select few possess the artistry to convey its enchantment.

 

                            Aiden Aranda

Aiden Aranda, Musician

“Since I was five years old, I have been around music and playing music. The instruments that I can play are guitar, drums, any variety, the recorder, the flute, the steel pan, which is my main instrument. And I’m learning to play the sax, the clarinet, and the bass guitar.”

 

 

 

 

Sixteen-year-old Aiden Aranda is a talented musician who realized early on that he had a special bond with music. He kicked off his musical journey at the age of five with the steel pan and has since taught himself to play several other instruments. Like many musicians, he believes that music originates from the rhythm of his heart.

 

Aiden Aranda

“That boop boop sound, music is attached to it. The heart is attached to music in a very passionate way because it depends on how a person feels. The genre of music they listen to, it depends on, like, their emotional status.”

 

 

The heartbeat and music share an innate connection, a rhythmic symphony that taps into the pulse of our emotions. In Aranda’s case, the heart’s connection to music is much more personal. His mother Indira Bartley would know.

 

 

 

                                 Indira Bartley

Indira Bartley, Mother

“I took him to the pediatrician and what happened was the doctor looked at me and said miss Bartley, what kind of medication is your baby on? I said medication for what doc? He said don’t you know that your baby has a hole in his heart?”

 

 

 

 

The medical prognosis for someone born with a congenital heart defect is typically bleak, but Aiden, with the support of his family, medical professionals and The Gift of Life Foundation, underwent two surgeries and an open-heart procedure to beat the odds at the age of two.

 

 


Indira Bartley

“It was two days after his second birthday. He  had his first open heart surgery for eight hours. The doctor came and he looked at me and he said, Miss Bartley, we need to call the priest. And I asked him, call the priest for what?  He said the surgery did not help the baby. He said, we need to pray for him because we don’t know if he’s gonna make it out for the night. I got up in that hospital bed and I started talking in plain English. I said, God, you did not bring me here for this. You took me away from all my family and all my friends to kill my baby when I have no support. And I said, I claim the life of my baby in the name of Jesus Christ.”

 

Since then, Aranda has carried on as a normal teenager but with stents in his heart to stay alive. In 2020, he was taken to the Cayman Islands to replace the tubular support that collapsed and, as recent as 2021, another operation was done to balloon that stent again.


Indira Bartley

“They’re waiting until he’s eighteen or nineteen. Because the entire right valve for his heart needs to be changed. And also the stents need to be replaced. But right now he’s a bit young. They don’t want to do that. They are waiting until he becomes an adult, so that when he’s done with that, he’s done with surgeries for good.”

 

 

It’s a heavy load to carry emotionally, but Aranda has found ways to cope and find peace in his prognosis. If you ask Andrew Green, a mentor to Aiden, he’d tell you that he believes music is Aranda’s comfort.

 

                         Andrew Green

Andrew Green, Mentor

“I’ve known Aiden for a couple years and being a mentor to him, it makes me feel happy because seeing him playing various instruments and having fun on stage alongside him, it’s amazing to see how he recovers and how he heals himself, just channeling through that music.”

 


Aiden Aranda

“I processed it a lot better with, you know, my connection with music. And basically, I would say to other kids that have the same heart conditions and things as me, I would say to them, don’t let it hold you up.  You have, if you have potential, you go do it. Don’t let it hold you up.”

 

 

His mother, witnessing Aiden’s musical journey intertwined with his health battles, speaks of the special connection between his heart and the rhythms he creates.


Indira Bartley

“I can’t explain the talent that he has, cause he would listen to something, and then he’ll pick up the keyboard, and you hear that coming out of the keyboard. He picks up the song and if he wants to play, you know, he sits and he plays with the guitar until he gets that sound. The doctor says, you know, the rhythm of the drum helps his heart to keep a rhythm.  So with that, I can have him play the drums all the time. I have no problem with that.”


Aiden Aranda

“The different sounds that come from the instrument, when you hold different:  notes, it’s a different melody every time, so, yeah, it goes with your emotions.”

 

 

 

And maybe it is the case. Aiden Aranda, born with something special in his heart, would turn its rhythm of adversity into a symphony of strength.

 

Looking on the Bright Side, I’m Sabreena Daly

 

In an immediate update to this story, we note that Aiden Aranda may have to seek an emergency operation earlier than expected.

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