The Government of Belize (GOB) welcomes today’s Supreme Court ruling declaring illegal the secret contract made by the People’s United Party (PUP), and which gave control of the IMMARBE and IBC registries to the Ashcroft alliance for 25 years.
The court’s decision, rejecting the Ashcroft alliance’s claim for $90 million for GOB’s take back of the registries, is a vindication of GOB’s position and a triumph for the rule of law and the constitution of the country.
As this current administration has always maintained, it is politically, morally and legally repugnant for the PUP to have handed over control of Belizean assets and revenue to the Ashcroft enterprise. It amounted to a scandalous diversion of monies that could only properly have gone into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and is yet another instance of the corruption that accompanied all the PUP secret deals. GOB contrasts this with the upholding of sovereignty, Belizean ownership and our financial laws, which has characterized this administration’s stance in dealing with all the Ashcroft’s concerns and GOB’s relations generally with foreign investors.
