Possibly for the first time ever the National Assembly will meet on a Monday. That's right, since the late 80's House meetings have been held exclusively on Fridays but next week Monday, the government has arranged for a special sitting.
What's the big deal? Well it's money matters again, as the government side will pass a resolution to re-finance debt with the International Bank of Miami. As we have reported, US$50 million in debt incurred for the BTL buyout from Michael Ashcroft is due on the 22nd. February. That's what the Prime Minister told the National Assembly in December, and agreed to in an interview last Friday but recent press accounts have suggested that the debt was already re-financed. The truth is that with so many different amounts borrowed from the International Bank of Miami in the last year alone, much of it without any public disclosure or announcement, it's difficult to know really what debt will be re-profiled. But from what we've been able to read into the resolution, government is going for approval to re-profile US$38 million more than $40 million that had already been approved, which we take to be the BTL debt, minus the $17 million that had to be left behind the last time it was re-profiled. And we note that with every re-profiling the cost of the debt increases.
