Will the Orange Walk Town Council be able to pay its workers tomorrow. That is a matter of some doubt tonight because the Belize Bank has frozen the council's bank account. The source of the problem is a one hundred and eleven thousand dollar overdraft which the PUP town council says it inherited from its UDP predecessors. Earlier this year, the Belize Bank converted the figure to a non performing loan - and notified the government which was the guarantor. Government appears not to have addressed the issue and today the Town Council was informed that all its accounts have been blocked. Now, this comes after extensive unanswered requests to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Local Government and the Prime Minister. Via telephone, Orange Walk Mayor Kevin Bernard told us that the council is facing an immediate crisis.
Kevin Bernard, PUP Mayor - Orange Walk Town
"We are at the stage where our account has been blocked. We have funds in our account but we cannot operate because we cannot do anything."
"As of today we were able to operate but what will we do tomorrow? How do we pay our workers? How do we provide the services to our people after tomorrow because we need to pay our payroll? Tomorrow payroll reach our operation staff. That is nothing less than $14,000.00. We need to make those payments."
"We have these monies in our account but we are unable to make those payments through the bank because we cannot cut a cheque. The bank will not honor the cheque because our account is blocked."
"What do we say to our employees? You have worked, you cannot get paid. It is unfair."
"We have been saying from ever since; we have been held hostage for an account that we were never privy to, that we never have access to. We have now being held hostage for something that we never did use."
"At the end of the day the bank is requesting that was guaranteed initially through a letter from the Ministry of Finance to the previous administration for a use of an overdraft that were never enjoyed by this Orange Walk Town Council - this current administration. It is up until today that we drive up to Belmopan to deal with this matter."
"We wrote to the Financial Secretary as you saw in the letter I sent you. We tried to meet with the Financial Secretary, but just to be told that he was in a meeting. We spoke to someone at the Ministry of Finance when we were in Belmopan earlier today and he told us the that the matter has been taken to the Prime Minister and they are working on it - they know it is an urgent issue."
"We have not gotten any clear indication of what will be done. Ministry of Finance has to deal with that for us."
Jules Vasquez
"And if they don't?"
Kevin Bernard, PUP Mayor - Orange Walk Town
"Then what do we do Jules? We shut down operation? Do we send home staff? Do we stop pick up our garbage? Do we stop maintaining the town? The people of Orange Walk don't want to hear that."
Bernard says they are trying to make alternate arrangement to meet tomorrow's commitments. We were unable to get comment from the Ministry of Finance.
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