Health Minister: we’re talking to possible U.H.S. buyers

On last night’s newscast we spoke to Minister of Health Jose Coye and learned that the nation’s expanded National Health Insurance coverage would be financed by the Ministry of Health, Social Security and the about-to-be-created Petroleum Fund. We also asked for an update on the situation with Universal Health Services. Coye said that two foreign groups here expressed an interest in purchasing the facility. One is said to be a non-profit organisation, based in France.

Jose Coye, Minister of Health
“They are interested in it because they are interested to come into the region, into Central America, to get involved in research and also in healthcare services. The other group who have interest in it, they are strictly profit oriented and they are looking at it more in terms of health tourism and they believe that that is the way that they can enhance it, through health tourism as it was originally intended to be. If those things come through, that will solve the problem for us.”

But sometimes things have a way of not coming through, and if they don’t, Belmopan is stuck with a thirty-three million dollar headache. When asked if government has completed its audit of how the loan money was spent, the answer was… not exactly.

Jose Coye
“We stopped at the point of the field work when the two interests came in and what we did, we took the work that we had done, and to the people who showed interest in wanting to buy, they brought their auditors in and we worked along with them with the field work now to provide their due diligence, so the government has done that part to encourage them.”

Stewart Krohn
“So you cannot still tell me if you are satisfied that all this money that was borrowed under the government’s signature was accounted for and spent properly.”

Jose Coye
“I would say for sure that the extent to which the loan in terms of the Belize Bank, the extent to which the money was used, obviously that can be easily determined, and that has been determined by the audit.”

Stewart Krohn
“So you are satisfied that that borrowed money was spent properly.”

Jose Coye
“No, that’s a different–I wouldn’t say that I am satisfied. If you asked me if I am satisfied that the money was in fact borrowed and was put into capital investments and into working capital, of course the bank is showing that and the audit proved that. Now to ask as to whether the money was well managed and was properly spent and where it went, well that’s a different thing.”

“That was one of the loans … a large loan that was defaulted, there was a miscarriage in the commitment under that loan and clearly people’s concerns are legitimate as you well know what we went through with that. What happened? How come this thing didn’t become viable? They didn’t pay anything towards the loan and it must be a concern, and a legitimate concern because at the end of the day it could be the tax payers that it will impact on, but we’re trying, we’re doing everything to avoid that.”

Coye said that he was awaiting the final report of the Commission of Inquiry for guidance on how to handle the recovery of funds from U.H.S.