On Friday, we told you about the package of legislation that the government had to rush through the house. It's all related to the offshore banking sector - and the laws have to be changed to be brought in line with European Union requirements before the new year.
In the house, both the ruling UDP and the opposition PUP supported it, and it was the same in the Senate.
But, one less high profile piece of legislation did draw some debate. That's the Deposit Insurance Bill which will create a Deposit Insurance Corporation and fund for the protections of insured deposits up to twenty thousand dollars.
The senator for the business sector was not convinced that it will work:
Hon. Mark Lizarraga, Business Senator
"Why are we preparing for a bank failure when we know it will take 100-200 years to collect enough to cover a bank failure? That is ridiculous."
Hon. Aldo Salazar, UDP Senator
"Financial institutions are going to put money aside into a insurance fund. The intent of that fund is to benefit the small depositor. How can that be a tax? I don't understand how that can be a tax. The small depositor - the coverage is up to $20,000 per deposit."
Hon. Steve Duncan, UDP Senator
"We have had credit union failures in this country. While we have not have domestic banks, we have had credit unions and I have lost money in the credit union and still can't get anything out and I am an average depositor. The government and the central bank is saying we want to be able at least put up so people can get at least $20,000 per depositor back, because we don't know how the receivership will be worked out. We dont know how the liquidation will go. We are going to put in place something so that at least you get back a little $20,000."
Hon. Michel Chebat, PUP Senator
"The learned senator speaks about and by this new corporation and when you hear him speak you think it's going to be easy to collect back the money, but what the honorable senator did not say for the benefit of the Belizean public is that those money paid out by this corporation will not rank in priority to secured creditors and so we are relying on, we are hoping to get back this money, but in fact we dont know if there is anything that going to be left after the secured creditors have been satisfied."
The bill was passed without incident - along with the six other pieces of legislations brought to the Senate from the House of Representatives.
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