Payments for Petrocaribe Become Due Later This Year

Yoel del Valle Perez Marcano

The first tranche of payment to Venezuela for the Petrocaribe loan is due later this year.  That disbursement will bring to an end a two-year grace period granted to Belize upon signing an agreement with Venezuela in 2012.

Yoel del Valle Perez Marcano, Venezuelan Ambassador to Belize

“The payments are normal.  We are not asking them to pay us what we have not loaned, which they don’t have to pay now but within a year.  An agreement is a contract between two states.  It has a time, its quantity and its products.  Belize had signed an agreement in 2012 for two years grace period.  That is to say that this year Belize begins to pay part of the forty percent to Venezuela.  The payment depends on the rate of the fuel, when they signed recently it was like eight, the price was dropped to forty-seven [dollars per barrel] and Belize, like any [country] that’s part of the agreement, should pay.  We hope that our allies and our friends who have received the benefits of our commercial proposal live up to their obligations in the time that it corresponds and we guarantee, as how we’ve guaranteed to the administration of our products of our industry and to take advantage of your question I need to reiterate that the price of premium fuel.”

There is currently a suit before the Supreme Court filed by P.U.P. Deputy Leader and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Julius Espat against the government and ALBA on the legality of the loan because they did not get House approval prior to the disbursing and spending of the funds.