Why Has CitCo’s Debt Ballooned to $47 Million?

Darrell Bradley

We also asked about one line item in particular, listed in the 2014 audit. That’s the total debt of the City Council. In 2012, it’s listed as just over twelve million dollars. In 2014, it’s at just over forty-seven million dollars. Again, we thought it fair to ask why the Council’s debt more than tripled between 2012 and 2014. He explained.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“Remember that we have a municipal bond so the municipal bond will be captured under our liabilities account. A substantial portion of that bond…not a substantial portion, but seven point five percent of the bond has been paid back; we paid it on the twenty-third of December of this year. That’s not captured in the audit because that’s for the previous fiscal period. So that that liability, a significant amount of that liability is characterized with our bond. But that specific line item, I don’t know if it says that amount, but that would be captured by our municipal bond. That would be the only…because one of the things that you will see in this year’s audit, which is finished the fiscal period ending March 2015, is a significant amount of our debt would have come off because of our repayment of that first tranche of the municipal bond and then our settlement of other judgment debts. We are working right now with the BML situation to try to agree with them in terms of a payment plan to settle two point something million dollars. We are trying to negotiate with them similarly as how we negotiated with them in Waste Control, to give us some kind of reprieve at least on the interest because these are substantial amounts that are owing. But all of that figure, the only change that would have been reflected in there would have been the municipal bond; we have taken on no other debt and the municipal bond is at twenty million. That would represented a big increase in that line item.”

To be absolutely fair to the Mayor where the missing 2013 audit is concerned, we have seen minutes of council meetings where the Mayor has repeated demanded the audit from the firm contracted to do it. Those minutes also indicate that the firm has taken responsibility for being unable to provide the audit.