Shell Belize Limited and GOB - they exchange tens of millions of dollars every year but still, it's like that old saying: "you only hurt the ones you love".
And so it is with these two, because even though Shell has blacklisted 8 government departments by placing them on a very public cash embargo - which means they can't credit fuel at any shell station - today Country Manager Joe Habet backtracked from that hardline, he told Alfonso Noble that GOB is his best customer.
Joe Habet, Shell Belize Limited
"It is not our intention to embarrass anyone. I think some of the information we need to clarify because most of it in our opinion does not capture the truth. At the moment our account receivable with government is very current. Obviously we have issues to work out with one or two departments, we need to provide receipts to some and the change in some departments makes it difficult to get the money. But overall we are very happy with the way we have been collecting money from government the past few months."
Alfonso Noble,
"Is government a good customer?"
Joe Habet,
"Let me put it this way, for the first time in our history or at least since I have been here our commercial customers have more outstanding bills than government. Overall government has been cooperating with us. We have very few departments who are following up with. But in terms of having a department that cannot pay, I don't think that's not the situation right now."
While Habet and GOB play nice - the embargo stands. And for context we should note that while government's outstanding bill to Shell stands at over one million dollars - in the past it has been double that.