At the top of the news, we showed you how the Opposition's Senators walked out of parliament, refusing to the participate in today's meeting.
Well, after they left, the Government's Senators and the other social partners went on with the business of the day.
They had 5 motions to debate and pass, but there were 2 which generated the most robust back and forth. The first was the approval of a loan from the Caribbean Development Bank of $20 million US dollars for the Development Finance Cooperation. The second was the approval of a 10-million-US-dollar loan from the CDB to the Social Investment Fund.
That's a total of $60 million Belize's dollars that these two statutory boards will be borrowing.
As soon as the Government's side tabled the hefty loan motions, the Social Partner Senators pounced.
Here's the back and forth on the bill for the CDB's 8th Consolidated Line of Credit to the DFC:
Hon. Osmany Salas - NGO Senator
"We ask Mr. President that the motion for this CDB line of credit include commitments on behalf of the government and DFC to see a direct pass through off the access to cheaper capital to the community that bares the real burden as a government guarantee, the stable sector for economy, the business community, the NGO community, thank you Mr. President."
Hon. Elena Smith - Labour/Civil Society Senator
"As we sat to go over this, we realize that the document given to us lacks a lot of details and so we, I'm sure that we are going to be hearing the responses to whatever questions we have. Unfortunately Mr. President, we make our decisions based on what we have in front of us and so we could only make decisions based on what we have here. We have several questions or clarity that we would need to have made today for us. Now, while we support the work of the DFC, because we understand and we know that persons who are really in need are the persons who benefit from the DFC and so we cannot help but support that those persons be given assistance. We look at this motion here and we see that its going to be used for 4 sectors; small and medium size enterprises, student loans, low income housing and then energy efficiency and renewable energy and our first thought was so, how will these funds be distributed among these 4 areas? Instead of having to come here with more questions as opposed to being able to fully support a motion, we would want to ask that when these documents are given to us always ask, that we be given enough information so that we can make proper decisions at the end of the day Mr. President my organization represents the workers and the poor of this country. This is an area where they can benefit from and if we do not have proper details, we cannot make proper decisions."
Hon. Ashley Rocke - Church Senator
"I believe that when we are given motions, it is our responsibility to find the sense in what is presented to us and in our deliberation talking with some of the representative of our church, we felt that the 2 entities in question have done tremendous in representing fiduciary responsibility as it relates to loans and so we lend our support for the motions relating to the loans for the DFC and the SIF."
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte - UDP Senator
"I hear my fellow senators specifically Lizarraga, Smith and Salas asking for more information in a loan motion like this, in a loan motion of this nature, the type of details that the senators are requiring are not the types of details that you can give up at this stage. Why? Because, the DFC is a statutory body. The DFC determines who will get what and how those monies will be disperse. There is a DFC report every year that comes out. You can take a look at that and see what is a habit of the DFC on how they disperse funds. We in this United Democratic Party Government, whenever we borrow money for our lending, there's transparency, there's efficiency and there is confidence in the DFC. So, I fully support this motion Mr. President."
Hon. Aldo Salazar - UDP Senator
"The people of the DFC should be commended for a stellar track record under this new re-emerged DFC. I think that it is a good loan and I think that it is deserving of support."
Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett - UDP Senator
"Let me, for the record, commend the development finance corporation for turning the institution around and allowing it to be in a positon where a CDB will lend directly to it. There was a time when that had stopped, not only from CBB but from everybody else. DFC has made a strong turn around over the years and I would want to commend them and let them know that we expect them to continue to do as good a job or better as they have been doing over the last several years."
Hon. Steven Duncan - UDP Senator
"Mr. President I too want to support this motion. We as a country found it necessary in 2009 to totally restructure and I think that is a mild word, I think we actually have to resuscitate and to add life to it once again. It was just about dead. It is very good to see how it has been running and managing its affairs since."
Hon. Godwin Hulse - Leader of Government Business
"We are now satisfied that the track record of the DFC is such that we have the confidence that they will do so and that they will be able to pay back their loans."
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