Media Personnel Questions New Online Business Registry System
On November twenty-eighth, the Belize Company Registry and Corporate Affairs Registry launched its Online Business Registry System; a fully online companies registry service legislated by the Companies Act, 2022. But, members of the press are taking issue with what they assert is a deliberate act to cloak the public registry system with secrecy. Prior to the launch of the online system, journalists were able to visit the Belize Companies Registry office where they were given access to look up the names of proprietors and shareholders for any locally registered company. With the newly launched online system, according to the media personnel we heard from via Zoom on Thursday, access for reporters has been significantly limited. They suspect that this may be the case because the confidentiality associated with IBCs has also been placed on locally registered companies.
Jules Vasquez
Jules Vasquez, News Director, 7 News
“This has a most deleterious effect on the practice of good journalism. It has a deleterious effect on the free flow of information. It has a sinister effect on transparency and accountability in public life. To me it is one of the most retrograde and anti-transparency public maneuvers I have ever seen. I thought that registered agents, who pay at least a minimum of fifteen hundred dollars. I’ll send you all the charges fifteen hundred US, but a maximum of five or six thousand US. You have to pay in US dollars and the reason you have to pay in US dollars is because it’s an IBC registry. Everything is paid in US dollars. So, local attorneys have to pay that amount in US dollars. I thought that because they pay this five thousand US, they would be able to do company searches still. Well, they cannot. They can do a search, and all you get is what is called, under the law, a short extract. And a short extract will only tell you when the company was formed and who its registered agent is. It does not tell you the directors. It does not tell you the shareholders. It does not give you any useful information. It basically tells you who the attorneys that set up the company are.”
Marisol Amaya
Marisol Amaya, News Director, Krem News
“The way the system is currently working as Jules pointed out is to completely block out the media whereas before we could go into, simply walk into the companies registry in Belmopan. I don’t recall having to pay. That was completely free. I had access to all the folders I could see, whether it was one folder or four, for any particular company. We had access to whatever information was in those folder and that information traces and tracks all the changes in directorship and shareholders and that information is also necessary for us to know and have access to. It is not about just who now are the current director. Even now in talking with the Deputy Director, he is saying we can discuss. But it does not appear to me that they are willing any at all to consider giving the media access to anything we had before and I do not think we should settle for anything less.”
Shasta Wade
Shasta Wade, News Director, Plus News
“I am not in agreement with this new change at all, either. I’ve spent several hours at the registry, and it was always a free process. You just need to give the name of the company that you want to research. You find the number, they get the files for you, and you go through it. If you get stuck and you find the next company, you go to that one. You can continue your research for many hours, totally free of cost. I personally think that this new change is really, indeed, counterproductive to the freedom of information. It makes it very much difficult to research, especially as Jules has been talking about. It makes it easy for corruption to happen, and if we want to be able to research things that are questionable, all of these hoops that we will have to go through, and the money now that will be involved. It makes absolutely no sense.”
