Senator says $45 million loan should have gone to parliament
Turning to the telecommunications industry, late Wednesday, government said it had taken over a forty-five million dollar loan as part of the nationalization of Telemedia in August. That loan, as it turned out, is owed to the British Caribbean Bank of (formerly the Belize Bank) of Turks and Caicos. But it seems that government may have put its cart before the horse by failing to take the issue to parliament as is required since any loan by government over ten million dollars must first get the explicit approval of the House of Representatives. News Five today spoke to Senator Godwin Hulse who supported the nationalization in the Senate. The senator says, however, that the debt was transferred under the Telecommunications Act which was used to acquire B.T.L., but to make it a part of the public debt, it should have gone to the National Assembly.
Godwin Hulse, Senator
“There was an amendment to Belize Telecommunications Act which authorized government to acquire B.T.L. and it authorized government to acquire property. Now in the act that was passed, property includes shares, tax, interest of all kinds including a mortgagees or charges interest in the property; telecommunications equipment etcetera. And so the legal authority is the telecommunications act itself to acquire all of that. What I disagree with is that the interpretation of that, to my mind, doesn’t give the government the right to simply say well we have acquired the debt and so it is a public debt. Government acquired B.T.L. with all its assets and all its liabilities, including the debt. Therefore, if government is going to take the debt singularly, siphon it off from the assets and liabilities of Telemedia, to my mind, that requires an act of parliament. In accordance with the Finance and Audit Act, there is not a penny of public debt that can be incurred without the authority of the National Assembly. Now it might be argued that the telecommunications Act authorized the government to do that. I am saying yes it authorized the government to take B.T.L. with all its assets and all its liabilities, which included that debt. But it didn’t authorized the siphoning of that debt and make it wholly a public debt and so I still believe an act of parliament is required to do that.”
Although government is claiming responsibility for the debt, the British Caribbean Bank filed a claim in the Supreme Court against B.T.L. last Friday for payment of over fifty million dollars which includes almost two million dollars in accrued interest, which it believes is owed by Telemedia. This is notwithstanding the nationalization of the mortgage debenture by the government.
