Chickens Coming Home to Roost

The chickens are coming home to roost for many of the PUP malpagos that have failed to service their loans with the Belize Bank.  Unfortunately, the only people who are suffering are the innocent employees and creditors of these businesses.  The Belize Bank will not lose since it was not their money that they were distributing so freely.  In any case the amount that the Ashcroft group saved as a result of special and often secret agreements that gave away tax privileges more than made up for the non-paying loans to special PUP insiders.  The malpagos couldn’t care less because the money they walked off with was worth far more than the assets that have been seized. 
 
The fact that the Belize Bank chose to make these moves at this time indicates that as usual there is another agenda.  The Bank knows that it can never recover any significant portion of the non-performing loans because the assets that were accepted as collateral are of very little value.  It is hoping that these actions will be sufficient to allow its official standing with Central Bank to improve so that it can get a clean bill of health for its bid to buy a bank in Trinidad.  There are those who see these actions as an indication that the Belize Bank is in trouble.  If so the trouble does not stem from a loss of revenue from its huge portfolio of bad loans.  Rather, it is coming from the official investigations now under way as a result of the collapse of Ashcroft related companies in the Turks and Caicos Islands.  The complex web of transactions featuring Ashcroft related companies, top politicians and the Belize Bank (or the British Caribbean Bank) is reminiscent of those found in Belize between Ashcroft related companies, members or friends of the then ruling PUP and the Belize Bank. 
 
Those not happy with Ashcroft and his machinations might be tempted to cheer this seeming setback for the Lord but actually it is Belize and the bank’s many customers that stand to lose should the Belize Bank go under.  Ashcroft as usual has found a way to hold the innocent hostage to his misdeeds.  Novelo’s hapless employees are left without their salaries and Christmas bonuses while their bosses blame everyone else for their troubles and take no responsibility for their malpago ways.  Tony and David blame the zoning laws introduced by the Department of Transport in 2008 for their inability to pay back their loans.  But the recent history of the various Novelo Companies shows that they have defaulted on loans dating back to long before 2008.
 
The best we can hope for is that the receivers will find a way to pay Novelo’s employees what they are owed as soon as possible so that the chicken that comes home to roost for them will be a big fat Christmas chicken.