According to Government Attorney Denys Barrow, that was the reason why the Government completely ignored the Ashcroft Alliance's terms for the first partial payment. Instead of paying in US currency - as requested by the Alliance, they decided to pay the majority of it in Belizean dollars.
Today, we challenged him on that, and here's how he put it:
Denys Barrow, Attorney for GOB
"It called for the first 50% to be made purely in US Dollars and purely on the assumption that what would be left in the other 50% would be sufficient to yield the accommodation agreement value. That turned out to be wrong and therefore government decided you can't get 50% in US dollars. You will get only 50% of that US dollar portion that you are due now."
Daniel Ortiz
"People have criticized the Barrow administration for ignoring the rule of law, that their favorite term and ignoring the courts and in this particular instance you all signed something for this settlement and did something different. It gives credibility to that criticism."
Denys Barrow, Attorney for GOB
"Yes, but Daniel you are confusing a number of things, ignoring court rulings, I haven't heard anybody says anything about ignoring any court rulings. The settlement agreement is not a court ruling. That is an agreement between the parties. So for the Barrow administration to follow the line which it thought was available to it in the face of an agreement which the court says was badly drafted and needed perhaps rectification, the Barrow administration simply followed a line which it though was most beneficial for the Belizean people."
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