And while public agitation is high, government has more than that to worry about; it has a closet full of skeletons which are only just being revealed. Secretly publicly guaranteed private debts it seems are plentiful in the Musa administration and tonight 7NEWS has obtained a document that shows how much government says Glenn Godfrey companies owe it. All we'll say is that it makes the Universal guarantee look "light."
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
According to this document titled 'Estimates of debt due from Glen Godfrey related companies to the GOB,' as of 31st. December, 2006, there are tens of millions of dollars in what are described as direct liabilities that Glen Godfrey's companies have outstanding with the Government of Belize.
It lists $40.5 million in securitized mortgages for Intelco related companies with St. James Building Society and Belize Social Security Board. Both were securitized under the North American securitization and the RBTT securitization. Add to that a few more headings like this one for $5.8 million that government is allowing BTL to pay back with business tax credits and you've got BZ$49 million. Subtract from that what government has gotten back from foreclosures on Intelco properties which is $23 million and you've got a grand total of $25.5 million the government says is owed to them from Glen Godfrey related companies.
But that's just table one. Table two shows another $2.2 million that government says is due from LGS services for a wide area network, which we assume is the network for the computers in school programme, which has crashed.
And then there's the money which the government says is owing for the Galleria Maya Limited project and Northern Data Processing Limited and that is another $7.9 million which brings tables 1, 2 and 3 to a grand total of $35,700,000.
And that's just the direct liabilities, the contingent liabilities are another $28.3 million. The contingent liabilities of course are the three put option agreements that
we first reported on last week.
And while all this is now the subject of very serious dispute, the agreements that created these entanglements date back to a free-wheeling time when Glen Godfrey and key government players were close and trusted allies - and guarantees were freely made without public or Cabinet knowledge.
Adding the contingent and direct liabilities it's a total of $64 million. Speaking with us today Glenn Godfrey said that, in fact, it's the government that owes him money, about $5 million. Godfrey assured us that he would provide his accounting of the figures. As for the 'put options,' with the Provident Bank, Godfrey refused to discuss those citing a client-attorney relationship.
But as regards government's statement on Friday that those guarantees are no longer valid, we are reliably informed that as recently as today Provident called the Corozal Free Zone management to re-iterate their entitlement to the Galleria Maya property and the Free Zone headquarters.
Read the Full Document at FreeBelize.org
