And while the Hernandez hemorrhaging of political capital is never a happy subject for the PM - neither was the public announcement that Belize must now close the door on an old friend, Venezuela. We're talking about APBEL, the joint venture company that government had with Venezuela's state owned oil company, PDVSA.
Recently, the US imposed sanctions on Albanisa, a Nicaraguan joint venture company with PDVSA. And, although APBEL, which once imported thousands of gallons of fuel from PDVSA, is now dormant, the PM says it will be formally closed next week:..
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow- Prime Minister
"I'm not sure what will happen. The thing is that our members of the board of directors of APBEL, remember we are 45% owners and the Venezuelans are 55%, are fearing that somehow sanctions might attach to them personally, so they are not going to stay. The Venezuelans say, and we've also told the Americans, APBEL does nothing. There is nothing to sanction. No activity to sanction. You can't blame them for being scared. And so, they want to come off the board. And when I said to the Americans, but nothing is happening with APBEL, APBEL is none functional, they asked the same question: well why is the office opened? And it was a question to 
which I had no good answer because I know that they are paying the owner of the building decent amount of rent, they are paying people, personnel who are supposed to be employees, who are doing nothing. All APBEL did was to act as the placement agent for the fuel we were sourcing form Venezuela. That stopped almost two years ago. So, indeed nothing is happening. I think the Venezuelans would still like to say just keep it open for their purposes in terms of optics. But it can't, Mencias is clear, it will close by next Friday and that, I am afraid, will be the end of a chapter."
We are told that the local directors intend to resign this week.
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