Is G.O.B. Handing Over a Blank Cheque in B.T.L. Settlement?

The settlement of the Belize Telemedia Limited nationalization with the Ashcroft Group was signed on September eleventh, taken before Cabinet on September fourteenth…to the House on September fifteenth and today it was before the Senate. That body was asked to give the green light to the supplementary appropriation of one hundred and sixty-two million in the first instance. That money is compensation for the nationalization of B.T.L. and payment of a long outstanding loan to British Caribbean Bank owed by B.T.L.  But the Senate is also being asked to approve an unspecified additional amount which will be determined by an international arbitration panel that is currently assessing share value of B.T.L.  And that’s a definite sticking point.

Mark Lizarraga

Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Private Sector

“This indecent proposal before us today, Mr. President, has gone way too far and is now clearly the full blown cancer the CCJ talked about. This blank check that we agreed to give government today; that we will agree to pay the Ashcroft Alliance, has we don’t ever been attempted in our history. Nowhere, Mister President, is it written that the legislation has the power, the right, the authority, to give the Executive a blank cheque to be used potentially for a commitment of this size. The law, Mister President, does not and has never sought to tie the hands of the Executive. The Finance and Audit Reform Act is very clear, the gambit of permissions allowed to the Executive in spending and borrowing of the people’s money. But this proposal, this indecent proposal, we say, supplementary goes beyond that. Mister President it is clearly in our belief contrary to the Constitution.”