And while the politicians will keep going with the blame game, we wanted to know who's to blame for the botched marijuana referendum?
It was a major legislative policy push for the Briceno Administration, and they kept at it - going into a political headwind at times - only to throw in the towel before the real race even started.
So, today, we asked Kareem Musa about his push - and now his pause, as the Minister of New Growth Industries, to legalize marijuana in Belize. He had the support of pro-marijuana citizens, but the churches and other conservative Belizeans blocked that effort by triggering a referendum.
The pushback from the conservative Belizeans, coupled with the concerns about the impact of legalization on correspondent banking relationships, have put legalization on an indefinite hold. But the press has questioned Musa about the concerns for correspondent banking relationships for months now, and he stuck to his stance that legalized marijuana trade could exist as a cash-only industry.
And even today, he stayed the course on those views:
Daniel Ortiz
"Do you disagree that it seemed that you either downplayed or ignored the concerns that the real issues that could take place with that?"
Kareem Musa - Minister of New Groth
"Cannabis legalization, Daniel, is taking place all across the Caribbean Like the rest of the Caribbean, Belize always has correspondent banking concerns, as you recall, with the offshore sector. And we had to make certain regulations and adjustments in order to comply with the European Union so that we were not blacklisted. So, Correspondent Banking is a live issue at all times for Belize and for the Caribbean. But what I can tell you is countries like Jamaica and Antigua are moving towards it. Trinidad is about to pass its legislation and St Vincent. Those countries are moving toward legalizing cannabis. As I always say, it's a cash industry, So when you ask me about banking. Banking does not necessarily come into the picture unless you're banking your cannabis dollars. So even in the Caribbean and the great United States, where it is a $92 billion industry, it is a cash industry. So, individuals who are engaged in the cannabis sector do not go and deposit their funds in the banks. That does not happen even in America. And so, like I keep saying, that is the way we have to operate in Belize if we were to legalize cannabis. So that was always known. So it's not a matter of downplaying. I think that one of the major banks had raised an issue. One of the bigger banks in the country had raised an issue about correspondent banking, again, assuming that we would have been banking the cannabis dollars in our banking sector, but again, that's not the case. So while it is [that] correspondent banking will always be an issue in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean, the real point is that it's a costly referendum, and so, it's $5 million. It would have cost for us to do this referendum. And to me, that is the real reason why at the same time, as we put a pause on the legislation, we have time to what? To tighten up whatever loose ends there may be in terms of correspondent banking, but in my respectful opinion, that will never be tied up. So, we had to figure out where we would have to figure out, whether it's opening community banks or credit unions that do not have correspondent banking in order to bank the dollars here in Belize. That is the solution. And there are several international companies who have expressed interest in coming and opening these community banks here."
