Today in the National Assembly, the big news was the Caribbean Court of Justice bill. But the fireworks came very early on when Leader of the Opposition Hon. Dean Barrow opened the day by challenging the Finance Minister to provide details of the U.S. $57 million loan the Government of Belize made from the International Bank of Miami. Here's that exchange and the subsequent fallout which rained down on our news desk. News Director Jules Vasquez who was at the center of much of the Finance Minister's vitriol has the story.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"Would the Minister of Finance say what was the rate of interest on the U.S. $57 million loan from the International Bank of Miami, whether or when the loan has been repaid and if it has not been repaid when will it be repaid."
Hon. Ralph Fonseca, Minister of Finance
"The rate of interest on the loan in question was 10% per annum. The matter of the loan obligation was settled by the Central Bank on May 19th after the 13th April 2004 clearing of proceeds from the sale of the Carlisle shares to Belize Telecom Limited an affiliate of Innovative Corporation ICC. This information is easily obtained if the Leader of the Opposition were able to understand the weekly and monthly money aggregates sent regularly to him from the Central Bank."
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"And we all saw the television yesterday and heard the Prime Minister give a completely different answer to this question…"
Hon. Ralph Fonseca,
[Interrupting Barrow] "Madam Speaker I must respond to that, please allow me to respond to that. The Leader of the Opposition has made reference to something that I just said and said that it is not true, in effect because someone else said something else. Yesterday in the press conference, a very irresponsible - established irresponsible journalist made a fallacious statement to the Prime Minister that I had said to an Amandala reporter that in fact some loan had been passed over from Government of Belize to ICC. I never said any such thing and all the Prime Minister's response was I know nothing about that. That is all that he said."
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"Everybody saw the tape, you know..."
Well everyone except the Minister of Finance who completely missed and misunderstood the event. What he calls a fallacious statement from me who he calls an established irresponsible journalist is really just a figment of his imagination. What the Minister of Finance is getting hot and bothered about is this: a straight question to the Prime Minister and an answer that does not square with what the Finance Minister has been saying, thus the source of great annoyance:
Jules Vasquez,
Has Prosser paid the U.S. $57 million as has been stated? The Minister of Finance told me that and it has been announced. But we have information that all he (Prosser) did was take over the loan from the International Bank of Miami and hasn't paid it off.
Hon. Said Musa, Prime Minister
"I don't know what is Mr. Prosser's arrangement with the International Bank of Miami; whether he has paid off the loan or whether he has made arrangements with them to pay it off. What I can tell you is that the loan obligation for the government of Belize has been settled when the government sold its shares and Social Security sold its shares. In other words the government does not have a loan obligation to IBM for that loan; Mr. Prosser has the obligation."
That's straightforward though in plain contradiction of what was stated in April that government received cash for the BTL shares. Making it clear that in this case while I am being scapegoated, the confusion is clearly between what the Prime Minister believes happened and what the Minister of Finance is saying. In other words, it's a problem between two big men and the details of a big sum of money.
For what it's worth, Finance Minister Fonseca's position that Belize was paid in cash is supported by Central Bank figures for April which show 1nflows of $173.2 million as inflows from the purchase of BTL shares.