Lord Michael Ashcroft has his say on Open Your Eyes
The guest on this morning’s Open Your Eyes was Lord Michael Ashcroft. The businessman was pointed in his replies to a vast array of questions from his early childhood and his connections to Belize to his recent troubles with the government. First on the troubles list was the Venezuela millions.
Michael Ashcroft, Businessman
“The bank believes that the ten million U.S. dollars that the government took back is by unlawful means and there is a process of appeals going through on that particular issue because that is basically the guarantee that was covered for the U.H.S. debt. But what it seems happened is the government has taken—the matter was settled with the previous government and so this government has taken ten million U.S. dollars from the bank which has affected the bank’s lending to the productive sector in Belize.”
“If you take the money back and spend it on housing, the government still owes the Belize Bank that money from a previous debt. So what politics does is link the two together and make it appear as though we’ve taken the poor people’s money in order to get people excited and it’s a populous measure by politicians in order to create support for themselves, but it doesn’t hide from the fact that there is a debt due to the Belize Bank. Through the arbitration going on in London, if we win that arbitration, it means that we win the amount we will get a judgment is not ten million, it’ll probably be sixteen, seventeen or eighteen million dollars which I think is an extraordinary shame that we’ve got a position where we had settled the matter.”
The other hot topic in the public has been the increase in taxes for telecom companies and the governmental and public skepticism surrounding who really owns Telemedia. According to Ashcroft, after the Jeffrey Prosser fiasco, G.O.B. approached him to buy back the company, but he was not interested and instead felt it was a great opportunity to re-Belizeanize it. Today he explained the company’s ownership.
Michael Ashcroft, Businessman
“The basic deal was that B.T.L. would buy these over-inflated properties in return for the concessions very similar to what Mr. Prosser already had and that what I was going to do was to create an employees trust for around twenty percent of the company for which the employees had to find no money but would be financed by Belize Bank, Social Security Board and government and that the rest of the shares would go into a charitable trust for the long-term benefit of Belizean charities and causes and that is in fact what the Hayworth Trust is; it’s a charity set up when eventually the debt that was incurred by the trust to buy the B.T.L. shares plus dividends and all when B.T.L. is sold, this will bring massive foreign currency into Belize because it is now completely Belizean owned and I think we estimated that on a proper sale may be up to something like one hundred and fifty million dollars U.S. could flow into the country. The dispute which I’ve read recently, it proved it’s for Belizean charitable causes. First of all, I have said to the prime minister right from the start when he asked this question, that before we finally make any settlement, I am more than happy to show all the documents. I was actually very proud to have Re-Belizeanized something. And then I have to watch the systematic destruction of this Belizeans entity for reasons that still take me by surprise and so whatever the outcome is of B.T.L., I have no economic interest. It is damaging a Belizean interest in the future and I am still not sure what this dispute is all about.”
“I have regarded Dean Barrow over the years as someone who I regarded as a friend. I supported Mr. Barrow very heavily throughout the last election. I think perhaps my group of companies may have been the largest financial supporter of Mr. Barrow and the U.D.P. in order for them to come to power. So quite clearly, when there are these disputes, it affects that personal relationship. But hopefully, we are pragmatic enough to work through it.”
On the recent signing of the compromis that paves the way to take the Guatemalan claim to I.C.J., Ashcroft felt that there are pressing matters, budgetary and otherwise, where energies should be directed.
Michael Ashcroft, Businessman
“I don’t believe that the I.C.J. Guatemala border dispute, which is a hot divisive issue, should now be on the table to divide the country in a referendum where passions will be high, where even this week some of the negotiators got eggs thrown on them and this will be a passionate debate that will take a lot of time. Nor do I think we should be tinkering with constitutional amendments. This is a time when there should be great efforts to bring the country together. I don’t particularly see merit in the charges of the pervious prime minister and Mr. Fonseca which I think will be shown at the end of the day whether people agree or disagree. We have great budget deficits, we shouldn’t be fighting… we should be using the talents of everyone and really try to pull Belize out of this recession.”
To watch the entire show by streaming video, visit our website at channel5belize.com and click on the Open Your Eyes logo.
