This afternoon we also asked the Prime Minister about another burning
issue – the matter of oil and specifically the revenues that government
has been collecting from Belize Natural Energy. As we’ve reported, BNE
has extracted more than 4 million barrels of oil and generated gross revenues
of nearly $600 million. GOB however has only collected $104 million. That amounts
to roughly 17.4 cents on the dollar – and while activists are outraged
and are calling on government to act - the Prime Minister says he won’t.
You can holler that as they say because Prime Minister Barrow told us that the
production sharing agreement with BNE for Spanish Lookout is a signed deal and
he won’t break it – or even attempt to.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“What has upset me is the level of ignorance which has then served
as a platform for people to make mischief. In terms of what the take is, would
I like more? Absolutely. We have to see the entire picture. First of all we
are locked into a contract by the last government, the same people who are bleating
so loudly and I draw a distinction between contracts that we didn’t know
about, secret contracts such as the Accommodation Agreement, which I think we
have every moral and perhaps legal right to reject, and contracts that were
signed in the full light of day in a publicly disclosed manner. You are going
to break those sorts of contracts at your legal peril and also at the risk of
interfering with the investment climate.
We have not found nearly enough oil. In my view there is much more oil
to be found in this country. If we interfere with the investment client it is
for certain that as a country we don’t have the resources to undertake
the exploration on our own. I can’t run the risk of driving away those
that are even now engaged in the process of trying to find more oil by demonstrating
to them that we can’t be trusted to keep our word even in the context
of legally binding contracts.
So I am going to say very clearly at the risk of any political fallout
that might ensue that I have no absolutely no intention in the current circumstances
of unilaterally breaking the contractual arrangements that govern the BNE situation.”
Keith Swift,
“But do you think 17 cents on the dollar is our fair share?”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“But I don’t know that it is 17 cents on the dollar. But whatever
it is, you have to understand that you can only hope to get a portion of the
net.
Part of it has been you have a kind of catch 22 situation. If you no oil
exploration is done then a huge element of cost that can be written off will
then disappear and naturally the net will be that much greater and government’s
take will be that much greater. But at the same time you want to encourage continued
exploration because you want to find more oil. It can be such tremendous contributor
to growth and development. So it is a trade off, it is a balancing act, and
at this juncture I don’t believe that we can do any better in the context
of the practicalities of the situation including the legal contractual arrangements.”
Email
Print