And in our final story for tonight from the Prime Minister, we asked him about what could be transition tremors at Scotiabank at the end of the month. That's when Belize Bank Limited takes over to complete the buy-over of Scotia, which was formalized at the end of last November.
We have seen an internal Central Bank document assessing the acquisition of Scotiabank by Belize Bank. It warns, quote, "It is projected that over 2/3s of SBL current staff complement will be without a job in 1-2 years." End quote
We asked the PM about that, and here's his response:
Hon. John Briceno- Prime Minister
"Well, I have not seen that report. So I can't really comment with certainty. But I can tell you that one job loss is one too much. And we hope that in the consolidation that they do not move quickly to try to let go of people. But also to have some sort of social conscience that at this moment there are no jobs out there. So if you were to let go people now there is nowhere to go. So, we would have to take a look at that and see how best we can discourage them from letting people go."
The document named "high level comments" was prepared by senior staff at the Central Bank.
