7 News Belize

BSCAP’s Side Of the Story
posted (August 15, 2017)
So, as you've seen, BSCAP's is going through a public relations nightmare, with the board being accused of taking advantage of the very same artist community that they are supposed to be serving. We made contact with several of the board members, and this evening, they organized a press briefing via Skype with Heather Cunningham, who is in the US. It happened about 1 hour or so before the start of news, and it ran for over 25 minutes. We start first with the board's response to Barrow's accusation, with a portion of Cunningham's prepared statement. Here's what she had to say just before news time:

Heather Cunningham, Former CEO - BSCAP
"As far as position is concern within the organization, the CEO reports to the BSCAP board of directors and the board approves all royalty distributions. Distributions can only be approved if licensing fees are paid by businesses and today we have approximately 15 businesses including Plus TV is the only broadcast licensee that had actually paid a license fee. Compare this to the approximate 2,000 and more users that BSCAP estimates uses music without paying a licensing fee in contravention of the Belize Copyright Act. Secondly, the board also approves all salaries and expenses which include annual payments to CSAC and ACCESS, all of which are organizations that aid BSCAP in international copyright royalty collections and as an international organization we submit an annual report to our affiliates which includes financials. Lastly, BSCAP has rules and policies that were in place long before Shyne took the post of CEO. A distribution rules govern the distribution process and is available to all of our members and international affiliates. To be clear the upcoming distribution that has been approved by the board was based solely on the monies received from since 2014 to 2016, and it's important to note that during this period and in accordance with the financial report that was alleged leaked to the public, it is clear that only a nominal amount was collected. I think it's somewhere between or about $13,000. So we are not even sure where the figures of $600,000 that's floating around came from."

And when she took questions from the press, she was asked specifically, to share her personal views on the accusations made specifically against her. Here's what she had to say:

Heather Cunningham, Former CEO - BSCAP
"The figure of $600,000 is absolutely preposterous and incorrect. I don't know where it came from and if you are looking at the same financials that I am looking at and I am not the best with math, but I don't know how $600,000 even with expenses and salaries and anything else that was pulled into the mix, it still doesn't equal $600,000. So again, it's highly inflammatory what Shyne is saying. Why would be go this route? Don't know. Why would be pulled the number of $600,000 out the air? I don't know. But it's not true and I do want to clearly state on the record that I have not been paid anything for BSCAP. I started in 2010 and it is now 2017 and I have not been paid a dime for BSCAP. I've spent a lot of time and energy without compensation. I am a lawyer by trade, so now this actually calls into question. It's like I paid over $150,000 to get my education and to know what I know and I decided on my own accord to help the Belizean artists, to help them understand how to navigate about rights and the value of the rights and to have somebody turn around and shout out or put out to the public that there is a mismanagement of funds, funds we don't even have. I think anybody in their right mind would get emotional."

So, later on in the conversation, we attempted to challenge her on those tidy sums of money she is asking for in salaries. It sparked a back and forth, and here's how that went:

Daniel Ortiz, reporter
"There is one line item for $50,000 for CEO. One for $60,000 for CEO. One for $70,000 for CEO. One for $80,000 for CEO. That's right there is around $260,000 that you are claiming as compensation for salary as CEO. You are asking for $260,000 in compensation as the CEO when in this upcoming distribution for the artists is around $2,500 more or less. How is it that you can reconcile asking for $260,000 when registered group of members of about 100 or so artists are going to be asked to share up less than $2,600- $2,700. That's the discrepancy that this gentleman is trying to put to the Belizean public. He is saying this looks like exorbitant expectations from a CEO."

Heather Cunningham, Former CEO - BSCAP
"My salary is what it is. It's been approved by the board. Let's be very clear on that. I think that my background, my credentials and all that I brought to the table speaks for itself. It speaks volumes. Now, the distributions, what Shyne did not let you guys know or let the media knows or the public knows, is that I am not claiming or asking for any of that money to be paid out right now."

Daniel Ortiz, reporter
"But you are still asking for it though. It's still a debt that the BSCAP has to pay."

Heather Cunningham, Former CEO - BSCAP
"Another point that he never clarified is once we get the financial audit completed, I said that whatever the auditor says is not justified will be excluded, but what we were told to do is to make sure we put on the record all expenses. Once the audit, only the expenses that can be justified will stay."

As we said, that conversation happened late this evening, and so, we'll have a bit more from the two sides in tomorrow's newscast.

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