And one of Big Creek's complaints is that they quote, "categorically reject the use of government funds" to enhance a facility that competes directly with their Port. Government is paying a total of 166 million for the Port, and it had to pay 45 million US last week to close the deal.
But where did government pull all those US dollars from? We asked the Governor of the central Bank today as he hosted his quarterly press briefing:
Jules Vasquez
"So the government has to pay 45 million US to the Ashcroft alliance, or WATERLOO, the owner of the Port. So in in a transaction like that, are these drawn down from the reserves?"
Kareem Michael, Governor, Central Bank
"Yeah. You've, you're asking all the right questions. Yeah. So they're definitely taken from reserves. We had a good level, a comfortable level of reserves. We were over a billion. It, it did create some issue with how those reserves were placed. So the Central Bank has a relatively suitable sophisticated investment reserves policy. So we had to move our own money to make sure that it was paid within the requested deadline. But we're fine when reserves still about four months of import coverage and under the billion dollar mark, but not too far below $1,000,000,000."
Government will pay the balance of 107 million dollars in four installments of Belize dollar treasury notes.
