Said “lay pipe” pan Johnny!
Posted: 22/10/2009 - 09:16 PM
Author: Aaron Humes
PUP National Executive to meet Saturday; Northern
Caucus tells Musa/Fonseca to give the assets back to its rightful owners, the Party.
Despite the much-publicized apparent reconciliation of the two wings, the “Old Guard” and the “New Guard” of the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP) in September, all is still not well at Independence Hall.
In fact, things are bad, very bad.
Evidence of that emerged this week when a letter, dated October 16, 2009, was sent from the law firm of Musa and Balderamos, which is the law firm of former Party Leader and Prime Minister Hon. Said Musa, to Party Leader and Leader of the Opposition, Hon. John Briceño, in which Edwin Flowers, the attorney for Musa and former minister and PUP national campaign manager Ralph Fonseca, demanded that Briceño pay the remainder of a debt owed for PUP assets: Positive Vibes Radio on Coney Drive, the Belize Times Press and Independence Hall, headquarters of the PUP on Queen Street (the Hall is the upper portion; the press is on the ground floor.)
Earlier this year (See front-page article in Amandala #2303 of January 25, 2009, entitled “Dear John, oh, how I hate to write…”), Flowers had written a similar letter complaining that Briceño had missed a January deadline to pay the money per the terms of the agreement entered into in May of 2008, which should have been closed by the end of last December, and asked him to find the money by January 15. That deadline was also missed.
Following Briceño’s sensational victory in the race for Party Leader last April, it was discovered that private individuals and companies, allegedly tied to former leaders Musa and Fonseca, owned the party’s assets as mentioned above.
This fact was apparently not known by the rank-and-file of the party, and by even some party leaders. They had all thought that The Belize Times, the radio station Positive Vibes and Independence Hall were owned by the party.
The truth is somewhere in-between, as we wrote in an April 2008 article, quoted below:
“…The (PUP) secretariat issued a second release this evening, indicating that the party’s media organs, the Belize Times and the Positive Vibes radio are, in fact, ‘privately owned’, but it does not clearly indicate who from the party owns them.
The release said that in 1956, the Times and Independence Hall were assets owned by the Price Estate, and that The Times also had small shareholders.
‘Over the years, private funds were expended to purchase these assets from the Price Estate, when the Estate was finally settled in favor of the beneficiaries. Private funds were also used to rebuild and refurbish the building following a disastrous fire, and thereafter to fund additions,’ the release goes on to say.
Those who challenge that position tell us that funds have been raised in the name of the party to finance those assets, yet the assets have been registered in private names…
‘ Positive Vibes has always had private ownership. When it became an asset dedicated to the party, monies were raised to fund its operational deficits,’ rebuts the secretariat release. ‘It is regrettable that the party leader has not stated these facts.’ “
(from article “PUP volcano erupting under Johnny!” in Amandala of Sunday, April 13, 2008.)
Together, the newspaper, radio station and headquarters building are worth almost a million Belize dollars. Some $200,000, we had reported in January, had been paid toward the purchase.
The current letter notes that despite the “repeated promises” of Briceño to pay what he owes, he has not, and as a result the “patience and tolerance” of Flowers’ clients had been “exhausted.”
Flowers goes on to tell Briceño: “You are advised that unless full settlement is made on or before the thirtieth of October 2009, the agreement will be treated as repudiated by you and our clients will have no other alternative than to re-possess the assets.”
We note that in January, a press release from Musa and Balderamos claimed that that letter was a standard response to a missed deadline, insisted there was no sparring between the two groups, and blamed the leaking of the letter on someone wanting “to create political divisions out of a straightforward business arrangement.” It further noted that the two parties had been in talks since the release of the January 5 letter.
Musa and Balderamos has not commented on the current letter; at press time Edwin Flowers had not responded to a message we left for him with a secretary. Hon. Briceño was not available today, we were told, as he was in a meeting earlier this afternoon and then had a doctor’s appointment.
We were directed to the Party Secretariat and Chair, Carolyn Trench-Sandiford, who told us that the National Executive of the PUP would meet on Saturday to discuss a number of issues, including the party assets.
Trench-Sandiford said that a decision would be forwarded to the press on Monday, but declined to directly answer our query as to whether the party could meet the deadline set by Flowers, or even how much was owed, beyond saying that the terms and conditions of the agreement of sale would be “reviewed”, and that “everything” would be looked at, while reminding us that the PUP’s membership has the final say.
In response to our question, “Is the PUP currently financially stable?”, Sandiford told us that it is “surviving” and meeting its bills on a day-to-day basis, with support from its members and volunteers. While she admitted that “nobody likes to be with a loser” and the party’s finances are “challenged” because of its status as the Loyal Opposition, she stated that, as Chair, she enforces transparency and accountability in the party’s finances, and financial statements are available at the Party Council, National Executive and National Convention levels.
She did not directly state whether the Party would therefore be able to meet the debt if they decide to go ahead and pay.
A high-ranking PUP adviser told us that the question of the party’s assets was never a factor in Briceño’s September decision to install Hon. Musa and Hon. Francis Fonseca on the party executive as, respectively, Immediate Past Party Leader (considered a new post, as George Cadle Price’s four-decade run as leader earned him the title of Leader Emeritus) and 4th Deputy Leader (behind area representatives Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde and former rep Daniel Silva).
Musa and Fonseca were installed in a party meeting held on Wednesday, September 23.
Already, the rank and file of the blue is having its say. A release from the PUP’s Northern Caucus, the eight constituencies of Corozal and Orange Walk plus associate member Belize Rural South, calls on Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca to “return all assets of the party, held in trust for the People’s United Party, to its rightful owners effective immediately.” The NC apparently met in regular session today, from which this release was produced.
And if there was any doubt about who rightfully owns these assets, it vanishes with the second section of the resolution, which requests of the National Executive that it “ensures that title for these assets are returned to the Party, where it should be vested in the name of the People’s United Party.”
In response, Trench-Sandiford told us that while the Northern Caucus, which represents almost a third of the country (and moreover is the Party Leader’s base) has a right to make resolutions like these, and that they will send Chair Valdemar Castillo (former Corozal North representative) to Saturday’s meeting to present this resolution, the Party’s other caucuses, organizations and leaders have an equal right to weigh in.
According to Trench-Sandiford, she does not know if the other three caucuses may meet between now and Saturday, but the decision will come then.
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