Should the government pay the 90.6 million dollars to the Belize Bank? All across Belize, views are very divided on this - and the sense we get is that most regular folks just don't know.
Indeed, it's a complicated situation with no easy answers - not even for the PUP - who still haven't said how its parliamentarians will vote!
But for the UDP - with the exception of the Prime Minister - it's almost a matter of doctrine now: they cannot pay the 90 mil.
And that's why the party has publicly bristled at the statement from the Chamber of Commerce. That private sector umbrella group blamed both political parties and said that the UDP should honor the debt. That's a complete reversal from 2007 when the Chamber membership vowed to stage a shutdown and withhold business tax payments if the then Musa government used public funds to pay Universal's private debt.
Godwin Hulse was the president the chamber at that time - and, now as a UDP Minister, today in Corozal he told CTV-3 that he doesn't see the sense in the Chamber's position:..
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Former Chamber President
"To be honest with you I am downright surprise at the chamber, because the chamber initiated this process at the time and we've walk through it. Actually Godwin Hulse, that's me, put my name on the, and I was the senator at the time, past president, but senator and I put my name on as one of the claimants against the government at the time, because I thought that it was totally and completely wrong. And it was not me alone who thought that. The NTUCB thought that, the Chamber thought that. The Chamber issued a very strong resolution. I mean really to say that the government of the day should have paid. On what basis, through what instrument? How would we have said well okay the courts are looking at this, but let us settle this and be done with this. That would have been totally irresponsible. But I do think they should have at least consulted with the past presidents committee which they have, which would have been not anymore me, but the other senior past presidents and get a very good understanding of all the details before they issue such a statement. It's just my belief."
And, what most people are concerned about is that 17% compound interest that will just keep growing once the debt goes unpaid. And that the bill - will eventually come due - and will have to be paid at an astronomical cost at some point in the future. Hulse has a different spin on that though. Through what we can only regard as a kind of perverse optimism - he said that once the loan is written off - interest stops accruing:...
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Former Chamber President
"And I am saying to you that the only reason government's money can be voted is for a goods or a service. Whichever way you take it. I don't know what it would be voted for now, so that bill would stay there and the government may say I can't find that money at all. There are other more pressing things and I don't see what I am paying for and that to my mind would be where it ends."
"The issue of interest running, I am yet to verify this, but my understanding is that all banks have to declare a bad debt at some time and when you declare a bad debt the interest is frozen and eventually you have to write it off. It doesn't mean you can't collect it in the future at some time if the system is good, but that is what they do with everybody's debt. I don't see why it would be different with this debt."
In a statement earlier this week, The Belize Bank said quote, "the funds at the end of the day were lent from funds deposited with the Belizean Bank by Belizean depositors. The Central Bank of Belize would take a very stern view indeed of any licensed bank not seeking to recover such a debt." End quote.
