B.W.S.L. union borrow $35 mil from S.S.B. to buy company

After months of stagnation, a thirty-five million dollar loan has been approved by the Social Security Board for the purchase of majority shares in Belize Water Services Limited by its management and staff. On Tuesday, after months of negotiation, the S.S.B. investment committee finalised an agreement with executives of the Belize Water Services Workers Union to buy fifty-one percent of the company’s shares. As part of the arrangement, the union has posted two million dollars of its pension fund as collateral for the loan. And while all the details have yet to be worked out, we are told that the purchasing package would enable the union to appoint at least two directors to the board of B.W.S.L. Following a tumultuous privatisation, in 2005 the Musa administration borrowed approximately thirty million dollars to buy eighty-two point six-eight percent of the water company back from CASCAL. Shares were then put up for sale to the public via the Central Bank. With this sale to the workers, the Musa administration gets some much appreciated breathing room and we understand the monies will be put into the consolidated revenue fund with the intent of serving international public debt as well as a partial payment back to Taiwan. Legal advisor to the government, Gian Ghandi, tells us that since the thirty-three million shares went up for sale, only twenty-eight thousand, six hundred shares or point zero-eight percent have been sold to the public. Provided there is a dramatic shift in public sentiment towards the shares, it is unclear tonight what government will do with the remaining thirty percent of the company.