No new clues in case of missing millions from Venezuela

It’s a situation that either has a very logical explanation or somebody has a lot of explaining to do. That’s the general feeling in Belmopan tonight as investigations continue into a letter that surfaced late last week from the Venezuelan government asking Belize to give account of twenty million US dollars, not ten as had originally been announced by the Musa administration. According to Financial Secretary Joe Waight, who also served in that capacity under the previous administration, today the new Government of Belize wrote an official letter to Luis Arias Bellorin, the Vice President of the Venezuelan bank Bandes, asking for clarification and information about the disbursement of the funds. Waight told us this evening that in late December, the Central Bank did receive ten million US dollars from South America but given the contents of the letter, there is now the possibility that that a second disbursement of the same amount was also made to Belize. If that did happen, the plan now is to find out into whose account the money was deposited. On Friday’s newscast, Minister of Housing Michael Finnegan showed us a letter dated February eight, addressed to then Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Amalia Mai referring to an agreement between Belize and Venezuela for twenty million dollars. Nineteen was allocated for use in home construction and repair while a million was designated to build a new track at the national stadium.