P.M. Barrow Under Fire for Mishandling Nationalization and Settlement

The sixty million plus dollars being paid in this first instance to the Ashcroft Group is based on an estimate share value of one dollar and forty-four cents. But when government sold shares in B.T.L. to S.S.B., for example, they did so for five dollars per share. So it’s very probably that the arbitration panel will value the shares in that upper range, which means that G.O.B. will owe the Ashcroft Group much more than just the sixty-five million. The Barrow administration, and very specifically the Prime Minister, is taking sustained fire for mishandling the entire process, from nationalization to settlement.

Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Private Sector

“We seem to have here before us today a settlement bill that in fact doesn’t settle very much at all. What has now proven to be ill-advised and haughtiness-driven, protracted arbitration proceedings has led to what was once a forty-five million-dollar loan now being settled at seventy-six million dollars. This decision to litigate rather than negotiate, as was advised by the business community then, has cost us today one hundred and thirteen percent in the interest alone, an unnecessary fifty-one million dollars Belize wasted from taxpayers’ money. This was, to put it kindly, a horribly conceited flutter gone sour.”

Lisa Shoman

Lisa Shoman, Senator, People’s United Party

“If the Prime Minister thought that he had gotten the best lawyers for money, I got news for ahn. I think that in my estimation, which undoubtedly is far humbler than that of the prime minister…obviously Eamon Courtenay and Allen and Overy are better lawyers than Barrow and Williams because this is a submission, this is a capitulation and there is no question about that. it’s not that we di capitulate yo know; it’s that we must understand that our government—one man in our government—has signed and agreed to it and his signature, in case unu neva see it, dehn right yah pan the line in which he signs for the Government of Belize. Dah three different pages, soh noh mistake it…for the Government of Belize by Dean O. Barrow, Prime Minister…signature there.”

Mark Lizarraga

Mark Lizarraga

“Why was the Prime Minister the only one negotiating, as he revealed himself? Why was he the only one negotiating with the Ashcroft Alliance, after all the insults that were hurled in public? The question many may ask is, in fact, was there more going on? A question many may ask is in fact…was there more going on?”