PM Barrow Explains Letter from Central Bank

Dean Barrow

That seventy U.S. million dollars in litigation has caused Central Bank to issue a dire warning to the Government of Belize, claiming that such a payout would destroy what is already a very fragile economy.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“What I understand the Central Bank to be saying is this. We have a decent amount of reserves as things now stand, but there are all sorts of calls on those reserves including of course the country’s liabilities with respect to the super bond. I have been warning for a while and you will see that the governor’s letter that is attached to Joe Waight’s affidavit, sets out the grim burden that the super bond represents and points out that in 2020 we will be paying something like sixty-two, sixty-five million U.S. just for that super bond alone, for which we have nothing to show. You talk about B.T.L.; we’ve already made almost two hundred million dollars from B.T.L. and whatever we are paying now on the Ashcroft Alliance’s own projects, B.T.L. stood to make almost a billion and a half dollars in profits by the year 2025. So whatever we are paying for B.T.L., we will more than get back. We own it forever and that company will continue to grow from strength to strength. But please do not misunderstand what I apprehend the governor to be saying. He must carefully manage the reserves; he must carefully balance the competing claims for him to sell foreign exchange to various entities; he must do all this in such a way as to ensure that we don’t run into trouble—that we don’t hit a wall in 2020 when the payments for the super bond will reach that astronomical sixty-five million U.S. dollars.”