According to documents tendered in court, in early June the Central Bank wrote the Belize Bank instructing it to remove 20 million dollars from its books. That's the same 20 million dollars in Venezuelan funds that had been recovered from the bank by the Barrow administration. It's now on government's books as an asset, so the Central Bank is saying that the Belize Bank has to take it off its books.

The Belize Bank challenged the directive in court and that's where the Governor Of The Central Bank tendered an affidavit saying quote, "The Central Bank Of Belize is also keenly aware of the Belize Bank's extremely high ratio of non performing loans...(which, at) 28%, which is more than 5 times the prudential benchmark of 5%. "

Ysaguirre continues to say that, "The overstatement of assets and understatement of expenses can mislead...as to the true soundness of the bank..."

He warns, "An overstatement of retained earnings can give a false sense of security to directors, shareholders and the public."

He concludes grimly, "The Belize Bank's performance is deteriorating and if left unchecked and unresolved could lead to the bank becoming financially unstable."

Now, that's not just loose talk; it's the regulator of the banking sector saying that the largest bank in Belize could become unstable.

And sustaining the pressure on that Bank, today's Guardian newspaper reports that nine Belizean entities owe the Belize Bank almost half a billion dollars; the paper quotes the figure at 482.7 million dollars.