Posted: June 22, 2016. 1:35 p.m. CST.
By Aaron Humes: Opposition Leader John Briceño has described the Government as “being on crack” and desperate for money, such that it has approached the Social Security Board to buy $55 million worth of BTL and BEL shares.
Briceño reports that the SSB has become a “piggy bank”, with several interests into it for millions in loans.
In the case of BTL, Briceño revealed that the company has been asked to take on responsibility for the arbitration award – specifically $48.5 million to be treated as a 20-year low-interest loan with a bullet payment.
Briceño expects a rise in General Sales Tax and implementation of other proposals by the International Monetary Fund – confirmation of mismanagement of the economy to the point where it has become a “perfect storm” for which the Government has no answers.
Balancing the rate of return for SSB is the “stupid decision” by Barrow, in Briceño’s words, not to pay the original British Caribbean Bank loan which ballooned to nearly 50 million US dollars.
The PUP is calling on all concerned to come clean to Belizeans about the uses of “the workers’ money.”
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