Exactly 2 weeks ago, Forestry Minister Lisel Alamilla announced to the nation that for every container of illegally harvest rosewood which was sold during the amnesty period, the Government – and by extension the public – only got $15,000 Belize dollars.
That was the deal which the Forestry Minister ultimately accepted and it came on the heels of the political hit which the UDP took because they allowed a rosewood amnesty in the first place. A major hit at that, because of the central involvement of the Deputy Prime Minister's brother, German Vega who is the leading exporter of Rosewood.
This revelation was met with strong criticism that the rosewood exporters had been allowed to short-change the government in a major way. That's because that $15,000 was supposed to represent a 50% revenue split, but a container of the prized rosewood on the global market is worth far more than what that split represented.
Today, we asked Prime Minister Dean Barrow about that deal which the Forestry Department took, and he wasn't familiar with the details...
Prime Minister Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"Minister Alamilla is not the kind to fool around and play games. If indeed, the Forestry Department, or somebody in the Forestry Department accepted a gross undervalue per container of rosewood, resulting in Government getting far far less than it should have and in the exporter getting far far more than he should have, I really need to get to the bottom of that. I would first want to establish the facts. I hear what you're saying that there was a great undervalue on the containers of rosewood. I don't know; I can't say that that is not so. I really need to find out from Minister Alamilla what happened."
Email
Print