And while Frazer says 4 board members are ready to travel to SSB's offices in Belmopan to seek clarifications on the loan portfolios held by Social Security this evening the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research, SPEAR, called the press to a briefing in which it simply tells those board members don't bother just resign.
Jason Price, SPEAR Representative
“SPEAR is calling for the immediate resignation of the board of directors; for the resignation of the investment committee of the Social Security Board. SPEAR is calling for an interim committee to be put into place and for an independent audit of the Social Security Board funds to be conducted and completed by next week Friday.”
Alfonso Noble,
Now the board has claimed that, at least a section of the board, they knew nothing of these kinds of investment that they came in after these things were done. Why would you still call for their resignation?
Jason Price, SPEAR Representative
“Well we should not even have to call for their resignation, they should resign out of protest. And in the others we are calling for them to resign out of shame. We believe that the people’s funds have been, as others have said, mismanaged and we at SPEAR hold a more concrete version of what has happened. We don’t want to speculate at this point but we want the Belizean public to know that SPEAR is exploring all options on how to handle this: legal options, proactive people participating options. And to get to the bottom of the Social Security issue which is of paramount importance to each and every Belizean. We are not going to sit by anymore and not question. We are not going to sit by anymore and remain slaves. We are not going to sit by anymore and just not think. We are going to be proactive participants in the processes of government. We are the government; each and every one of us is responsible for what happens to this country and what happens to the future and SPEAR is going to take up the active role of starting to call the picture as it sees it.”
And while SPEAR pursues the matter to see where the paper trail will go to for the first time since news broke the Social Security is defending itself and its investments saying everything is peachy. The board has issued a press release which states that over the past 5 years it's embarked on quote: "asset-backed mortgage securitization" where it has securitized loans to a tune of $98.97 million to various housing programs. But while this portion of the SSB's portfolio may not be in the limelight SSB has disclosed that under the same asset backed mortgages it secured $41 million of $45.3 million of the Godfrey Group's St. James National Building Society. It goes on to say that the securities have to date met their repayment obligations. It further states that quote "with the impending sale of Intelco, proper arrangements are being made for the assumption of the Godfrey group of companies debts." It says that the SSB will ensure that it is repaid $5.6 million that it has paid on behalf of the Godfrey securities. The release ends by assuring the public that pertinent information is always available. We take this to mean that when the 4 non government board members travel to Belmopan they'll be met with more that just open doors but open books as well. This will not be seen however until after the members conduct their investigations into the SSB's loan portfolios.