Turning now from national to local government, the city council says it may have to juggle the terms of the first municipal bond which the previous mayor Darrell Bradley floated.
It was the first municipal bond, and it was ultra secured by the government subvention and the cruise ship head tax - which went directly into a sinking fund lockbox at the central bank. That gave investors a high level of security - but the world has turned upside down: there are no cruise ships coming in anytime soon, and the subvention is now going back to City Hall, which is struggling to even pay its 400 plus employees a half salary.
The mayor discussed these changes today:
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"Actually they had approved that the subvention be redirected to us. They did it for April, I believe they had promise to do it for May and June and then we then begin to look at how we go forward. But clearly, the subvention is just a portion to the obligation of the bond. Thee significant portion was from the head tax. Remember the subvention is $125,000 per month and the head tax in the neighborhood of $300,000 monthly. So that was the bulk of the funds going into the sinking fund at central bank to service the previous bond. So clearly that has been compromised given that there is no tourist ship come into Belize City and so we are looking at how we will approach these bond holders from the previous bond. When we look at the interest obligation for our existing municipal paper bond and the existing bond putting it together we could easily be able to meet those interest payments on an annual basis and it will free up the subvention to us, it will free up the head tax. So those are some of the areas we are looking and we will be going at it very aggressively with those bond holders when we get through this obviously."
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