"Hollywood" that's how the Prime Minister described Alfonso Noble's recent trip to Northern Ambergris Caye to find the much talked about 2,000 acre swathe of land that Social Security bought from a cash strapped government in August.
It was a $6.8 million transaction which saw Social Security take money out of a term deposit at the Scotiabank and invest in what's been called a speculative plot real estate venture. The Prime Minister says that a number of board members were taken out there last week to see the land for themselves and he doesn't know what Hollywood version we were dealing with.
Hon. Said Musa,
“Who is to say where the Hollywood player went when he was batting off mosquitoes and flies. How can the Belizean people know he went to the correct area?”
Jules Vasquez,
How can the people not have been shown a title?
Hon. Said Musa,
“...But I am saying that...how did you know you went to the correct area Jules? It’s a huge area.”
Jules Vasquez,
But we consulted people who know the area.
Hon. Said Musa,
“Okay good. Thank you.”
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
More than Hollywood playing it was hard bloody work. After taking a boat ride along the shoreline of Ambergris Caye, 12 miles north, we arrived at this small access road. It was put in back in the 1950's by an oil mining company that would later abandon it along with an airstrip that is visible from the air. It is here that our swampy, mosquito-laden experience took place. Being led by a local expert who knows the lay of the land but who wished not to appear on camera, we trekked 1-½ miles in, to the Basil Jones area, the highest area in the entire Northern Ambergris. The entire area of available land on Northern Ambergris Caye is 22,000 acres, 12,000 of that is government of reserve, and by deduction our search led us here to the remaining 10,000, where Social Security is already the owner of 1,000 acres, which according to the General Manager, adjoins its new acquisition leaving it somewhere in this swathe of wetland. Now we may stand corrected, but then so would the Social Security Board, over two months after paying $6.8 million for the land, our reports say that up to two weeks ago, the title had not been registered for the two thousand acre, 6.8 million dollar transaction.
And while the land issue is still a dispute, good news is Alfonso has not contracted malaria.