Senator Godwin Hulse raised eyebrows on November 15th when he spoke in the National Assembly and demanded that all stamp duties that had been collected by the private companies register be refunded to the government. As has been widely reported, $1.8 million was refunded. That was 79% of the money government had paid as stamp duty on behalf of Michael Ashcroft when he bought back the BTL shares. It was a secret deal, but when the media exposed it, Cabinet responded to public pressure and decided to cancel the private registry contract and get back the money. But that's only a slim percentage of all the stamp duty revenue that the Belize Companies Register Limited had collected in its three years of private operation. Government agreed not to pursue recovery of all the money as the central condition of a settlement. Government's position on the settlement was that it had to give up something after canceling a sovereign contract that had 12 years remaining on it. But, according to Senator Hulse, they settled at the taxpayer's expense and on a defective principle and he won't just let it slide. He told us as much yesterday.
Senator Godwin Hulse,
“To me it’s a principled stand and it’s a logical and proper stand. I have indicated that this company was formed when there was no law to give effect to such a transaction and then I have challenged the legal people to say to that it has to be a illegal contract and I believe that company had time to do what it was doing and therefore is that is so, then we deserve to get our money, that is public revenue. It is supposed to be in the public coffers and I don’t why we would be paying our taxes and we don’t get back money that is due to us, that is rightfully ours and those who created this be dealt with in one way or another. The challenge is out there to them. No one has come back and said you are wrong. If they had said to me it was legal and you’re wrong, fine, but until such time I stand my position.”
Government has not disclosed how much revenue Belize Companies Register Limited collected.
