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Also discussed at today’s House sitting was the BTL situation. You’re probably asking which one right? Well it’s the approximately $6 million that the government claims BTL owes in business tax. Since January, BTL has been with-holding its business tax payments based on the strength of a secret agreement signed by the last government which authorises BTL to withhold taxes so that it can recover $18.6 million that it had to spend on……? What else? Recovering the Intelco assets secretly guaranteed by Social Security.

It is the rotten cherry atop a colossal mess and one the Barrow administration has been trying to work its way out of. And that has meant ignoring the agreement and demanding payment in full of the tax. And today, BTL was summoned to the court before the Revenue Magistrate to answer to one count of non-payment which is only for January. But the matter was not heard, and Luis Requena who is the senior bailiff with the Income Tax Department told us why.

Luis Requena, Senior Bailiff
“Taxes owed by BTL and other conjunctive companies submitted a check for $1.5 million probably yesterday, I don’t know when they received the check, but covered the taxes owed by the companies and as you all can see we went to court to withdraw which was the proper procedure.”

BTL was represented by Eamon Courtenay. And while January has been paid, February, March and as of tomorrow April are all due. But today in the House, Prime Minister Dean Barrow said that for the time being – they are holding off on issuing summonses for those months because government will have discussions with BTL, discussions which may even extend to recovering the $20 million Venezuela housing grant.

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“The summons that was issued was with respect to the business tax for January. Business from our point of view is also owing for February and for March and by now for April. We will not issue any additional summonses immediately to see if the process of discussions that will start will get anywhere.

While the discussions are principally about the Accommodation Agreement which the former Prime Minister signed and the bundle of accompanying subsequent agreements, one of which at least was witnessed by the member for Freetown, the discussions will also look at the possibility of the moving force behind BTL working out an arrangement for the payment of $20 million that as you know this government insists is owing to the government and people of Belize by the Belize Bank. I don’t want to get too much into that but I just want to signal that that issue is also a part of the discussions that will be taking place.”

The talks between BTL and the government are expected to start tomorrow. We are told that those discussions follow a Saturday meeting between the Prime Minister and Michael Ashcroft – who the Prime Minister just referred to as ‘the mover behind BTL.’ Reports say the meeting lasted almost three hours, and was contentious. And though the money was paid, reports to us say that BTL had already filed an injunction against today’s proceedings in a British Court because, again as part of the secret accommodation agreement, the former Prime Minister agreed that it would be subject to arbitration in the UK.