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Last week on this newscast – Prime Minister Dean Barrow made it clear that he won’t even entertain the idea of nationalizing Belize Natural Energy. There’s clamouring for it in the media but Barrow made it clear, he’s not trying to win any popularity contest and he’s not trying taint the reputation of Belize’s petroleum industry.

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“Suggests that there is more oil in this country, lots more oil, and we want to find that oil. How on earth are you going to arbitrarily do away with binding contracts, do away with your tax regime and expect that anybody will then be prepared to continue search for oil in this country. That makes absolutely no sense at all to me. So let me say again, this is where I stand: when we had a secret Telemedia Accommodation Agreement that was in addition to being secret, clearly illegal, I yielded to no one in terms of my preparedness to oppose on all terms, with every fibre of my being the continuance of those arrangements.

But it is completely different when you are talking about legitimate arrangements that we might not like, that we might want to blame on those who signed those arrangements for locking us into but are legal. I am not going to interfere with binding contracts because that would be counterproductive and against the interests of the people of this country who are depending on the finding of additional oil In order to help with budget support and the development agenda.

That depends on this column you see, that depends on how valid, how legitimate their transportation and handling costs recovery figures are, their capital and operating costs recovery figures are. Now we are not going to stand here and accuse them of padding the figures but I will refer again to my favourite Arab proverb, ‘trust in God but tie your camel.’ It is incumbent on us to make sure that these figures are accurate.”