And while Marin defends himself, today, so too did the Central Bank. We caught its new governor Joy Grant at a Bank event where we asked her about the state of the official reserves.
This is after last week Friday, the PUP declared that Belize's foreign reserves were quote, "dangerously low" after government was forced to pay US$67.5 million to the Ashcroft Alliance. But how low is it? Governor Grant set the record straight.
Reporter
"Ma'am, since we have you here, can you address for us Belize's foreign exchange situation? We were told that the government did procure those US dollars to pay the former owners of Belize Telemedia Limited."
Joy Grant, Governor of Central Bank
"Yes, we did the payment earlier than the court ask us to do. So that's done. We all know that with Hurricane Earl and with the productive sector, banana, citrus, shrimp - all having a down turn that we are very much engaged in reviewing our foreign currency situation, foreign exchange situation on a regular basis, even maybe more than before. And also looking to projections so that Central Bank will be able to ensure that the payments are there in the future."
"But I want to assure the Belizean public that there is no crisis with foreign exchange. We have foreign exchange. We are doing everything as a jurisdiction to make sure that foreign exchange will be there for the business community and others who needs it. However, because we have said before that there's been a large outflow within the last few months, because of these extraordinary payments that there's been a decrease but that there is sufficient foreign exchange in the system to continue to operate."
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