P.U.C. Buys Mirab’s Old Building for $10 Million; New Commissioners Want to Reverse Deal
The Public Utilities Commission bought the old Mirab building on North Front Street for ten point three million dollars in December 2019. But since the purchase, the P.U.C. remains at its Gabourel Lane address, paying about twelve thousand dollars in monthly rent. The details of the sale were revealed by the new chairman of the Commission, Dean Molina, in a letter he sent to Barrow and Company’s Andrew Marshalleck seeking legal advice. That letter sent in December 2019 was leaked to the News Five, and its authenticity has been verified after the attorney spoke to reporter Hipolito Novelo.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
In this letter dated December twenty-second, 2020, the newly appointed Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, Dean Molina, seeks legal advice.
Molina wants to know if the newly appointed Commission has the powers to reverse a mega purchase-sale agreement worth millions of dollars made under the former government. How much? Ten-point three million dollars with an interest rate of seven point five percent. What was the P.U.C. buying? This building here- the old Mirab building on North Front Street in Belize City.
Dean Molina
In the letter, Molina explains that on December third, 2019, former P.U.C. members held a meeting where they discussed the purchase of the old Mirab Building from Boutros Bou-Nahra Company Limited. An initial down payment of one point eight million dollars was agreed upon, but due to cash flow problems, the members agreed that the down payment would be paid in part by cash and by transferring a piece of land to the seller. It was a piece of land owned by P.U.C. and exchanged at a value of one million dollars.
In the letter, Molina brings up an interesting point. He says that Pierre Bou-Nahra, part-owner of Mirab Store, was a P.U.C. commissioner when this meeting was held. This brings out the matter of conflict of interest.
But according to Molina, it would appear that Pierre Bou Nahra recused himself then. At a prior meeting, three months before, on September twenty-fifth, 2019, the meeting minutes show that he informed the Commission that the building was for sale. According to the letter, the parties later executed an undated, unsealed agreement that appears to have been prepared on the same date as the P.U.C. meeting.
But it seems that the plan for the P.U.C. to buy the building was hatched months before. The letter says that two months before the building’s purchase, the P.U.C. had requested that the P.U.C. land be examined to estimate its market value. It was valued at one point four million.
On October nineteenth, 2019, when the Commission met, and Bou Nahra was part of that meeting. It was decided that the property would be sold for one point five million. But instead, it was exchanged for four hundred thousand dollars less than its market value.
According to the correspondence, it seems that only the commissioners knew of this mega purchase-sale agreement. According to Molina, no one was aware of the purchase, save and except for the finance officer, who was reportedly instructed by the outgoing Chairman to make payments with effect from January 2020.
But what was supposed to be scheduled monthly payments were irregular. On October twentieth, 2020 – months into the COVID-19 pandemic and economic hardships and a month before the general elections, the P.U.C. made advance payments for November and December. But it didn’t finish there. A month later, on November tenth, one day before elections, the P.U.C. made another advance payment for January and February 2021. There is nothing in the minutes of the meeting that indicates the commissioners agreed to the advanced payments.
The purchase was made in 2019, but today, the P.U.C. pays about twelve thousand monthly in rent at its current location. Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
