There is still no word on when the Belize Sugar Industries will be able to make the third payment to cane farmers for the crop year. In the House today, the Leader of the Opposition, John Briceño, noted that the gravity of situation has caught everyone’s attention except the government. Instead, GOB’s focus has been […]
There is tension and unease in the sugar belt tonight. That’s because the third payment to farmers for cane delivered to the Belize Sugar Industries, is delayed. Even worst, there is still no indication when the eight thousand farmers and their families will be paid. So far they say they have been patient but that […]
The Social Security Board made the decision to use fifty million dollars of the people’s money to buy shares in Telemedia. It did so over the objections of the social partners: the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, the Belize Business Bureau and the Belize Chamber of Commerce. The social partners have not gone beyond […]
The B.T.L. shares were launched for sale on October fifteenth, and from what we gather, the sale to the public is moving at a snail’s pace. Digicel Caribbean had indicated an interest to buy, but as far as we can tell, that has not yet happened. Last week the Social Security Board, by slim majority, […]
Up north, there’s still a quandary over the third payment to farmers for the 2009-2010 that was due this past Monday. Belize Sugar Industries Limited has been unable to come up with the cash because they lost an important source of income when ING bank did not renew their funding agreement in September. A loan […]
The Belize Sugar Industries Limited has announced that it is unable to make the third payment for the 2009-2010 crop, which is due to cane farmers on November eighth. The delay in payment is the result of a decision by I.N.G. Bank not to renew its agreement with B.S.I., which expired on September thirtieth, because […]
As we have been reporting, I.D.B. President, Luis Alberto Moreno, is on a working visit to Belize. Along with, Harvard’s Dr. Ricardo Hausmann, he partnered with the private sector to look at ways to bolster growth, at a time when the economy is in recession. Belize has a foot in both Central America and the […]
Up north, there are more signs that the sugar industry is in trouble. Sugar production dropped significantly this year by twenty percent and it is not known when the next grinding season will start. On the financial side, the Social Security Board has just approved a loan of ten million dollars to the Belize Sugar […]
The President of the Inter American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno, is on a two day visit to Belize. He is meeting with Prime Minister Dean Barrow, other government officials and representatives of the private sector to discuss the IDB’s continued financing of development projects in Belize and other possible areas of funding. Other senior […]
The ink had not even dried on the decision by the Social Security Board to invest in Telemedia when a first salvo was launched on the illegality of Tuesday’s decision and the previous recommendation of the Investment Committee. Earlier today, Glenn Tillett, a talk show host, wrote to Lois Young, the Chairperson of the S.S.B. […]
As we told you, the Belize Social Security Board’s decision is already under fire. The vote was taken on Tuesday night because on Friday of last week trade union representatives Dylan Reneau and Elena Smith absented themselves from a scheduled meeting which would have considered the vote. When it didn’t happen, the S.S.B. chairman, Lois […]
Still on the S.S.B. fiasco, Dylan Reneau also says that the unions need clarity on what they consider a veiled threat on the issue of the quorum at board meetings. Dylan Reneau, President, N.T.U.C.B. “I think we need to have some clarity on what transpired last Friday. [Uhm] certainly we notified the board that we […]
At news time tonight, a vote has been taken by the Social Security Board on the fifty million dollars in Telemedia shares. According to the reports, the social partners comprising the unions, the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Bureau voted against the investment. The five representatives from the government, however, voted to support the […]
A proposal to introduce cruise tourism in the south should have been a done deal instead it has been stopped in its tracks. In Placencia, residents are dead set against it because they feel that this brand of tourism will destroy the natural beauty of the peninsula and that far outweighs any benefits to the […]
Government was halted by the Unions last Friday in its headlong rush to get the Social Security Board to buy twenty percent shares in Telemedia. Under the SSB Act, a meeting of the Board can only take place if the representatives of the business sector and the unions are present. With the union reps absenting […]
The Social Security Board was to decide today whether or not it was to invest fifty million dollars in Telemedia shares. But that didn’t happen because the representatives from the unions did not present themselves to the scheduled meeting. The vote could not be taken because the Social Security Act is clear that for the […]
The Social Security Board is expected to take a vote on Friday on whether or not it will invest fifty million dollars in BTL shares that were offered for sale on October fifteenth. We won’t know for sure until then but government is expecting the SSB to come through. At the launch of the prospectus, […]
Residents across the country are still reeling from Sunday’s hurricane. While personal losses are still being tallied, the pockets of motorists will also be battered as an increase in fuel prices is sure to add to the existing woes. As of tonight the cost of premium fuel will once again go up an additional thirty-six […]
Last week Friday, the government launched its prospectus for the sale of Telemedia shares but less than a week later, a dark cloud hovers over the public offering of shares in the company. On Thursday, Justice of Appeal Dennis Morrison heard extensive arguments about whether an injunction should be granted to halt the sale of […]
The price per hundred pound cylinder of butane went up on September twenty-eighth and on Wednesday it took another two dollar jump. So the new cost of cooking gas in Belize City and Corozal is one hundred and fourteen dollars while it’s at a hundred and fifteen dollars in Orange Walk. Both Belmopan and San […]
One in the myriad of cases before the courts in the nationalization of Telemedia is by the British Caribbean Bank that is seeking to recover millions of dollars on loan to Telemedia. But last Friday, at the launch of the BTL offering, the Chairman of Telemedia, Mr. Net Vasquez, declared that the loan of twenty-two […]
One of the former directors of Belize Natural Energy, Shiela McCaffery, is wanted for less than twenty thousand dollars paid out in BNE cheques when she had already been removed from the company. But there is more trouble and it has to do with the Belize Natural Energy Charitable Trust Fund which was established in […]
The government appointed members on the BNE Charity Trust Board are Landy Burns as chairman and Alberto August and Ismael Requeña as representatives. BNE’s appointed members are Kevin Herrera, Daniel Gutierrez and Noemi Escalante. Deborah Seawell points out that the current Chairman is following the guidelines of party politics rather than the established criteria to […]
Almost a year ago, Carlos Magana, the former strongman in the Belize Cane Farmers Association was unceremoniously dumped and replaced by David Madrid. Madrid signed a three year contract and last Friday Madrid, like Magana, was fired from his post as the CEO of the BSFCA, only nine months after he got the job. Madrid […]
The investment of social security funds, some fifty million dollars, for the purchase of BTL shares, is not getting support. Aside from Digicel Caribbean, government is urging the Social Security Board to buy in but the prospectus will not be available until October fifteenth. The Chamber of Commerce on Thursday said it could not support […]
