P.S.U. Intends to Take Legal Action Against Belmopan CitCo

The battle over the Belmopan Hilltop property between the Public Service Union, the Belmopan City Council and an Asian businessman from Corozal, seems to have ended amicably following a meeting on Thursday with Prime Minister Dean Barrow who is also the substantive minister for the Public Service. According to the P.S.U., during the meeting, the parties discussed the ‘expeditious’ and ‘questionable’ sale of the union’s headquarters. The P.S.U. is reporting that progress was made and according to reports, PM Barrow has pledged fifty thousand dollars to the P.S.U. and has promised that it will refer to P.S.U. to the National Bank of Belize for a loan to re-acquire the property from Chinese businessman Xin Ni who used his company Simplex Design to buy the headquarters for four hundred thousand dollars. PM Barrow explained why:

Dean Barrow

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“They represent these thousands and thousands of government employees. They are one of the most valuable sectors of the society. They are actually involved in a partnership with the Government of Belize and most importantly at all, of they did pursue a loan at the National Bank of Belize it will have to be collateralized. My own suggestion would be that the very property in respect to which the barrowing would be made, could, should, would form the basis of the collateral. I heard all sorts of suggestions as to what is the true value of that property. I believe those of you or there are those of you in the media that have suggested ‘how comes the property is only selling for four hundred thousand, is valued than more than that.’ If that were to be the collateral I think the National Bank of Belize would be in clover. It would have worries about repayabilty.”

The P.S.U. says it intends to fully exercise its rights in pursuing legal actions against Belmopan Mayor Khalid Belisle and the Belmopan City Council.