G.O.B. Explains Access to Funds for Projects to Benefit Belizeans

Dean Barrow

Back to the issue of the arbitration award for the nationalization of B.T.L….During his presentation on Wednesday, the P.M. claimed victory, particularly because of his own remixed accommodation agreement with Lord Michael Ashcroft last August in Miami in which he was able to come to agreeable terms on the original Accommodation Agreement of the past administration. Those terms indicate that the portion of the award attributed to the original agreement, sixty percent, will be placed into a restricted trust. That restricted trust is to be used for projects which benefit the people of Belize, but clearly, at the discretion of and with approval from the awardees who will administrate the monies. The Prime Minister referred to it as G.O.B. paying money to itself, but it’s probably not as clear cut as that.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I would imagine that as soon as the monies are deposited we will want to have a meeting with the administrators of the Trust. We will before that meeting want to look in terms of our own Project Execution Unit and the Cabinet and those that are at the front lines especially with respect to the human Development Ministry – we will probably want to get together to come up with the series of projects that we will wish to propose. I hope and believe that there will not be any difficulty in reaching agreement. The words while no examples were listed of the sorts of projects that we would want to undertake – the words for the benefit of the people of Belize are straightforward and I don’t expect that we will have too much difficulty. Recollect that we are only paying half now, and the second half will not be due for a year. Within that first year before the second half is due, we will certainly have had an opportunity to judge how well this thing works.”