Tonight, the National Trade Union congress of Belize has hardened its stance against the government purchase of two parcels of land for 6.9 million dollars. It's for the University Hospital - but one of the members of the University's Board of Governors is also the president of the NTCUB. Today he told us he will not be complicit in what he believes is a suspect purchase. So today he went to the Lands Department to get to the bottom of it and our cameras were right behind him.
Today the Ministry of Natural Resources got an unexpected visit from NTUCB President Luis "Luke" Martinez who went to investigate the history of parcels 5624 and 11214, the site for the University Hospital.
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"So the National Trade Union Congress, we're having a series of meetings to get down to the bottom of this land deal right, that's not going to work for the Belizean public."
Government used taxpayer dollars to purchase the parcels for 6.9 million dollars. We are told - that was paid out two weeks ago.
Martinez - who sits on the board of the University of Belize - wanted to find out if taxpayers got value for money. Upstairs he met with Labour Senator Glenfield Dennison who had already paid the office to retrieve the Land Register Report for the parcels.
But, the MNR security wasn't happy with our cameras witnessing it all - and they feebly tried to put a stop to it:
Security
"Can't di video een ya."
Glenfield Dennison
"We will meet you outside then."
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"No man, we could do it in here."
Security
"No."
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"Where does it say we can't do it in here?"
"This is a public space, we could do that in here."
And we did do it in there - where Martinez and Dennison reviewed the documents from the register - which did not yet register a transfer:
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"So far, there are some indications that the government hasn't transferred the, the transfer isn't completed in terms of form the owner to government, right soh. We want to get to the bottom of whether government has paid and how much they paid, right soh."
"We are willing to take whatever measures we need to take to ensure that we stop this stupidness, right? It must be stopped. How you gwen build wah hospital close to a shithouse!? Who have that sense? Who da technocrats?"
"That the government di bullshit the people eena this country, bullshit the senate, bullshit UB and just di bullshit everybody that's why they wah build the hospital close to wah shithouse, right?"
Strong words and palpable outrage, but today he obtained the proof that these properties were flipped. In 2018, the owner Kenny Zheng bought them for a shade over 600 thousand dollars, and sold them to government 6 years later for 10 times that price:
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"2018, da two parcels. They pay one, 160,000 dollars, one hundred and sixty thousand you know, it noh reach a million! The other piece they pay 450,000 dollars. Eena 2018, the most they pay for this 15, the owner the Chineyman pay da mi 610,000 dollars.Fast forward to 2024 mi bredda, with no kind of development, how you reach, how the technocrats reach 6.9 million dollars? They need to tell the people that! Other than that, everything else da just bull----"
After that Martinez went over to the Ministry of Finance to see if they could find out if the full payment has been disbursed.
Martinez - a veteran public officer - walked in with a confident swagger
But left a short time later - the Fin Sec was out for lunch - it was 12:30.
Luis Luke Martinez, NUTCB President
"We're here to find out where the minsitry of finance is in terms of the payment. There's a process that we need to follow, so they would create an invoice and make the payment. The accountant general has to go through her due dilligence to approve the payment, soh."
"And the best person to get the answers from is from the financial secretary. If he wants to direct us to his finance officer, fine, no problem. We could work with that, but the people need the answers!"
Everyday more of those answers are appearing in documents like these - forcing the Prime Minister into a position where he too will have to find an answer soon to growing resentment of a clearly dubious deal.
