Last night on Mek Wave and Lik Road, for the first time since the Novelo's receivership collapsed in December of last year, the man at the helm of the company Bob Garcia made a media appearance. And while that would have been enough to spark viewer interest, it got better; across the table from him were his nemeses, the Novelo brothers, David and Tony. They were there to settle once and for all who was responsible for ruining Belize's national bus service.
It had all the settings for a battle royale, a fight to the finish, the world series of finger pointing. But with titans of talk at all ends of the table, truth proved to be a moving target and we tried to set a bead on it in this string of clips, see if you can follow along.
Mike Peyrefitte, Lik Road Co-host
"Did you get $30 million from the DFC?"
David Novelo, Guest
"The Novelo family acquired a loan at the DFC for $30 million and we got $30 million. You had Western Transport purchase which was the original Shaw Bus Company. And then you had as well Northern Transport which comprised of Urbina, Escalante, and Venus Bus Line. So all of this was purchased from Mr. Zabaneh and we paid Mr. Zabaneh a total of $15 million. There was a conflict in the time of taking over the northern fraction because there was a complexity, the Novelo family had bought directly from Mr. Zabaneh, in terms of the Northern, but he had come into a management arrangement with Mr. Gilharry which, by nature they had a complex situation there, and a further $1 million was given to Mr. Gilharry.
We spent a total of $5 million in acquisition of equipment. These were Blue Bird buses and there was a inventory of $1.8 million of parts that was spent, in terms of you had engines, transmissions, and so forth. We had an improvement of terminals which amounted to $0.5 million, which was $500,000. So $500,000 was spent on that and the remainder was working capital that the family stayed with.
We had also legal fees that, as well, and in addition. The lawyers for DFC was Godfrey. Now what transpired with this was that was originally, $800,000 was to have been the legal fees for Glenn Godfrey. However it was an for the $800,000 but it further compounded to $2 million and that happened after the family had already disbursed to Mr. Zabaneh, had already made disbursement to the law firm then."
Mike Peyrefitte,
"So your legal fees were $2 million."
David Novelo,
"Yes."
Michael Finnegan, Lik Road Host
"Have we concluded yet?"
Mike Peyrefitte,
"We have $5 million left, $4.5 million."
And if your head is still spinning, last night's show will repeat here on Channel Seven on Sunday morning. But that was only round one. Next week that same truculent transport trio has committed to resume the hostilities when they re-appear on Lik Road, joined by one more road warrior, Froylan "The Gladiator" Gillharry who's asked to get in on the disputatious discourse.
