Why was Atlantic Bank Rep Present at Blue Bond Meetings?

Along with the prime minister’s delegation was Greg Maheia, a credit risk officer for Atlantic Bank Limited.  While the group was comprised primarily of government officials, Prime Minister Briceño says that Maheia was there simply as an observer.

On the phone: Prime Minister John Briceño

“Mr. Maheia, he’s not here as a representative of the bank.  It’s something that interests him and he wants to participate, so he came along on this trip and it’s something that is funded by him and not by the Government of Belize.  But more importantly, we have our CEO, CEO Garcia who is in charge of the Blue Bond Office.  As you all know, the Blue Bond Office is attached directly to the Office of the Prime Minister and then you have Minister of State Christopher Coye who does most of the technical work in finance and the foreign minister who, again, helps, you know, many of these issues have to do with other countries and the Minister of Foreign Affairs has been extremely helpful in getting a lot of this work done and then we have Ambassador Mark Espat who has been helping is in all these negotiations.  What we had set up when we got into government is a small, what we call a debt management team basically made up of these individuals, minus Mr. Maheia.  And so, we can then, as a team, look at all these debts that we have and where we think we can get some relief for Belize.  And so, that is why we have done the work with the Blue Bond, that is what we’ve done with the Petrocaribe debt and continue to look at other avenues.  We need to see how we can be able to get more resources to do what’s important for Belizeans in reducing poverty, creating opportunities for Belizeans, investing in education, in health, infrastructure.  There is so much work that we have to do in Belize.”