Last night we reported that the man who owns a third of all Belize's banana farms, Soren Sorenson was in a financial crisis, so much so that last week he paid his roughly 300 workers, a third of their salary in cash, another third in food vouchers, and promised the last third for some time in the future. That happened on Friday and yesterday labor commissioner Paul Williams toured Sorenson's farms to get a full grasp of the situation. Well, he didn't need an accountant to tell him that the financial crisis in Sorenson-land is acute. But Williams told management that the one-third payment is unacceptable and illegal.
A release form government today said that the labor department will monitor the situation closely to ensure that the management fully pays the workers. Typical of the deferential treatment Sorenson has always gotten from government controlled institutions such as DFC and the Social Security Board, the release says nothing of punitive measures that would be taken against him for non compliance. As we reported the Social Security board invested just under 4 million dollars in Sorenson's aquaculture and banana farms at a time when he was already considered a significant risk in the commercial banking sector.