S.S.B. chairman offers details of loans

While the Prime Minister?s speech made the headlines, the issue of wrongdoing at Belize?s public institutions has not gone away. The question remains of how former P.U.P. Minister Glenn Godfrey managed to borrow millions of dollars in government guaranteed loans with little collateral for a telecommunications venture that could only be described as extremely risky…all while he was the chairman of the D.F.C.

And while our calls to Godfrey, Minister of Finance Ralph Fonseca, Chief Executive Officer of the Development Finance Corporation Troy Gabb and General Manager of the Belize Social Security Board Narda Garcia, went unanswered, News 5 has gathered some information on how the loans were handled. In speaking with News 5 this morning, Social Security Board chairman, Yasin Shoman, says that in 2001, the board agreed to act as a guarantor for a collection of loans seeking securitization. This process enabled the government to borrow badly needed hard currency on the international market. Repayment would be based on cash flow from repayments of the loans by the individual borrowers backed by collateral in the form of real estate or other hard assets. These loans included those of the Glen Godfrey group of companies, made through the St. James Building Society. While Shoman says he was not personally involved in examining the loans and mortgages to be securitized, including collateral and business plans, he contends that the bundle had passed through the due diligence process conducted by the Development Finance Corporation, the Royal Merchant Bank of Trinidad and Tobago and a group of North American investors before it landed in the S.S.B. boardroom. Therefore, its members felt comfortable in agreeing to securitize the loans. Shoman says what the S.S.B. did, in essence, was to guarantee the repayment stream. But when Godfrey?s companies defaulted on three loan payments, the chairman admits the board was forced to make those payments on their behalf. However, Shoman argues the situation is “temporary”, as he maintains that in the end, the Government is the final guarantor and while every decision is risky, as chairman of the S.S.B., he does not see “any problems”. Shoman stated, “We have to try to work this out amicably. If we attempted to do anything else it would be risky, possibly detrimental to the country”. Any legal action, said Shoman, would not solve anything and every attempt should be made to try to make sure the country doesn?t get hurt. As for the full disclosure that so many organisations have joined ranks in requesting, Shoman says he does not have a problem making the information public and has agreed to share pertinent documents regarding the securitization of the Godfrey loans with News 5. And while the open attitude of the S.S.B. chairman is to be commended, the same cannot be said for the Development Finance Corporation. Not only has every top official of the D.F.C. been missing in action over the last few days, but believe it or not, no employee of the D.F.C. would even supply News 5 with a list of that corporation?s board of directors. We did, however, manage to recall the name of David Courtenay, who was D.F.C.?s deputy chairman at the time that Godfrey was Chairman. When we asked him to explain D.F.C.?s role in the Godfrey loans, his official position was that he will “not get into the fray”.