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Chamber Against Amendments
Fri, June 26, 2015
At the top of the newscast, we told you about today's House Meeting where the Barrow Administration pressed and passed the amendment bill to the Petrocaribe Loans Act. As we've shown you, the Opposition believes that it needs to be repealed, and in principle the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry agrees with them.

President of the Chamber Tux Vasquez told us that the changes are cosmetic, and that this law wasn't needed in the first place:

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez, CEO - Port of Belize Limited
"The chamber is certainly not against the initiative of the Petrocaribe funds. We are not against the borrowing the 1% interest is a great advantage for us. We are also a bit concern as to the spending, how it was being done. We have been requesting more details and then after the recommendation of the amendments were made, we also look at that with our legal people and we also believe those amendments are also not really necessary. At the end of the day the chambers' position is again I emphasize, not against the Petrocaribe initiative and not against the borrowing at that very minimal rate but we are certainly concerned about the transparency. we are of the opinion that they was no need for an act like that, that this loan could have been handled within the Finance of Audit Reform Act of 2005 and the amendments made in 2010 and also were the constitution is concerned that this loan could have been handled within the controls already provided under that and that's where we stand with it and saying there is no need for a new act."

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